The MT prop shipping has turned into a classic Customs nightmare. The prop was supposed to be shipped to Ottawa, and I intended to handle the Customs clearance myself, as I did for the original Hartzell prop. The process was quite simple - I picked up the paperwork that came with the prop, then went to Customs, handed them the paperwork, paid the sales taxes, then took the Customs clearance paperwork back to the warehouse, and they gave me the prop.

I know that the North American distributor told MT to ship the prop to Ottawa, as that note is on the invoice that I got from MT. But, for some reason, the prop ended up going to Toronto, and with Toronto as the final destination. It was supposed to arrive the week of 1 Dec, but the shipping got delayed, and it arrived on the weekend of 6-7 Dec, in Toronto. Fortunately, I was scheduled to be in Toronto for three days of meetings on 9-11 Dec, and the Customs office at the airport is open 24 hours a day. The agent for the international receiving warehouse faxed me all the paperwork, then phoned in a panic to tell me that there was an error, and they would fax it again, with the correction. I marked the first fax as being in error, and took the second pile of paper to Customs on the evening of 9 Dec. The Customs officer was very friendly, very helpful, and extremely cute. Things were looking good. I paid the sales taxes, and got the magic piece of paper with the Customs Release stamp.

Wednesday morning I couriered the Customs paperwork to the warehouse, and arranged a truck to ship the prop to Ottawa (the North American distributor agreed to pay the trucking costs, as I had paid for shipping all the way to Ottawa). Then, in the afternoon, everything blew up. I got a phone call from the warehouse agent, very angry, saying that I had given the first fax to Customs, and the Customs agent at the warehouse had refused to release the prop, due to the error on the form. It turned out that the last page in the second fax was a repeat of the incorrect info from the first fax, and that was the page that Customs had stamped to give me the release. It took two days to sort out that mess - I finally got a phone call late on Friday saying that the paperwork was sorted out, and that Customs had released the prop, and that the trucking company would pick it up on Monday. I’m keeping my fingers crossed until I get confirmation that it is actually here in Ottawa.