I had heard about that unfortunate accident with the P-3 that threw a
rod. That was a bad situation all around, I'm sure it was awful to
watch in person.

There is an FBO locally that has been doing maintenance on another P-3
for several years, and I plan on having the heavy maintenance done in
NC by the shop that works on probably half of the P-3s based in the US.
Its true that there aren't that many places that either know what the
plane is or who have worked on that engine/prop combination.

The good side about the plane being heavy is that the airframe is built
like a tank, of course the bad side is that the glide performance is
very poor (much different than the Grob 103 glider I used to fly).

Eric