Here’s hoping that 2021 erases at least some of the hardships we have all experienced this year. It has to be better, right?

Let’s see, I flew on February 28, 2020 and then didn’t get back into the air until November 3rd. I may have been out to the hangar a few times during the Spring and Summer months but in general I tried to stay away from everyone and everything. [I am in the high risk group with respect to Covid-19 and have no desire to test what type of reaction that I would have to catching it.]

The annual inspection on the Swift ran out at the end of April so even if I had wanted to venture out, the airplane was not legal to fly.

I finally started driving out to the airport again in mid-September when my schedule would allow and started working on the annual. . By the first of November I had completed the annual inspection and its requisite paperwork and again had a flyable airplane. But not for long….

I logged 3.5 hours of flying over November 3-5 and after the last flight topped off the tanks in preparation for a few days of non-flying while a winter storm blew through the area. [ For the calendar year 2020 I managed to log 10.5 hours in the air – not what I was hoping for at the start of the year. ]

The next time I went to the hangar to fly I found a fuel stain, still wet, under the right wing root. After the expletives stopped reverberating in the hangar I started my search for the source of the leak.

Oh the joys of aircraft ownership – especially an antique/classic aircraft. At least as an A&P/IA I have the ability, training and certification to fix it myself.