After wrangling with the insurance company for months on end, James Romson and Bernie Watson finally came to an agreement with them on the replacement of the Romson Industries plane. Neither could believe it had taken over seven months to receive a check for the value of the lost aircraft, less a healthy deductible. The day the check cleared the bank, James changed insurance companies. He felt the years of business with no claims, plus the obvious theft of their aircraft, should have prompted the company to be more responsive, but they had not budged. The lack of an aircraft hampered testing on several new items under development. Chartering a plane and pilot had proven to be prohibitively expensive, so they had had to wait.
The only silver lining in that black cloud was the availability of the confiscated drug plane coming at the same time as the insurance settlement. After carefully checking it out with Dan Hixon, James promptly bid on the Beaver. Even though the plane came with notification from the DEA stating it was a confiscated drug plane, many bidders were afraid of being inspected and trace amounts of drugs being found. This kept the price of the plane well below market value and allowed for some very nice upgrades to be added. Since the Beaver was located in St. Paul anyway, James and Dan took the time to go over to Wipaire, Inc., one of the premier aircraft modification companies in the country. Dan Hixon felt like a kid who had been given the candy store, not just allowed inside. His experience as a bush pilot didn’t tempt him into making the plane fancy, but he added top-of-the-line avionics and performance-enhancing options instead.
The hard part was determining what had to be done right away and what could be put off until later so the plane could be put into service more quickly. Fortunately, the wheels and skis from the old Beaver would fit the new one. Dan Hixon ordered parts and stockpiled them in the hangar where he promptly began installing some of the new equipment. Upgraded avionics and radios were the first things to happen. The plane would get a new paint job, in the company colors, but the paint would wait until spring.
Dan also purchased new, more aerodynamic Wipline floats to increase airspeed by over twenty miles per hour and decrease fuel consumption. He also made modifications to the wings to provide more lift and better airflow.
James finally had to make him take a couple of days off around Christmas. “Look, I appreciate you are trying to get the plane airworthy right away, but I’d rather have you fresh and ready when I need you. I don’t need you burning out on me before we even get the plane in the air.”
“Okay, boss. Would it be all right if I pick which days I want off?”
“I guess. Why?”
“I’ll try to match them up with Sarah’s off days. Maybe we can do something together.”
“Sarah?”
“Yeah, Sarah Summers.”
“Yeah. Cool, huh?”
James gave him a grin. “Go for it, Tiger. I just want you to take at least two days off between now and New Year’s besides the holidays. I don’t care which ones, and they don’t count as vacation days either. I’ll count them as comp time. I know for a fact you haven’t been clocking all your hours. Being on salary doesn’t mean I want to abuse you. You are already doing much more than I ask of you.”
“Works for me. Thanks, boss. I think I’ll have everything done shortly after the first. Unless you want skis put on. They will take me another week.”
“I think we should do that. We need to take some people up to the lodge for some of the new product trials. I’m sure the lake is close to frozen if it isn’t already. I’ll get someone to give me a report on conditions next week.”