N9757H was bought by the Team Arrow syndicate in February 2008. Before it was shipped to Malaysia we had the aircraft inspected and some modifications accomplished the principle one being a Garmin GNS430 

We debated the merits of keeping the aircraft under 'N' registration. The primary reasons for keeping it as an 'N' registration was that maintenance can largely be done by the owners and only an Annual Check is required (whereas in Malaysia 50 and 100 hour checks by a maintenance organisation are necessary). There are some issues keeping the aircraft under N registration though:

• A non-US licensed pilot cannot fly the aircraft outside of Malaysia
• We may have problems in positioning the aircraft at Sungai Besi Military Airfield
• Aircraft ownership must be a US Resident
• FAA qualified A&E required for annual check sign-off

In the end our hand was forced somewhat after the previous owner de-ristered the aircraft in the US (which he was not supposed to do until we took receipt of the aircraft into Malaysia). This meant that technically the aircraft was 'stateless' i.e. was not registered anywhere.

In June 2008 the aircraft arrived by ship into Port Klang whereupon it was trucked to Ipoh for re-assembly by Mutalib of ExecuJets in Ipoh.

Further modifications were required to comply with Malaysian requirements i.e. a Starter Warning Light

Team Arrow  also procured various bits and pieces

• A fuel flow transmitter - which at the end of the day could not be installed
• Life jackets
• Tie-down kit
• Other miscellaneous items

We then undertook the registration of the aircraft as 9M-TAR - TAR meaning 'Team Arrow' with the association also of Tunku Abdul Rahman - Malaysia's first Prime Minister in 1957. Little did we know that we were to associate TAR more with 'Tears and Rage' when dealing with the Malaysian Department of Airworthiness (DCA)!

To cut a long story short... the Malaysian DCA decided that this was a 'first of type' aircraft in Malaysia, meaning that as no one before us had registered a Cessna 182 in the country and that they did not regard it as technically being similar to a Cessna 172 or other similar Cessna aircraft (as we were previously advised they would) then a whole technical evaluation of the aircraft had to be undertaken. this involved the FAA, DCA, Cessna and ourselves! More than that the process on how to evaluate such an aircraft had not been decided between the FAA and DCA. Eventually though we got there in the end; after almost an entire year!!

So after gaining Type Approval, Certificate of Registration, Certificate of Airworthiness, Insurance, Maintenance Agreement and other documents we finally took the aircraft on June 6/09 and positioned the aircraft at Bernam River Airfield.

Concurrent with the above we negotiated a lease arrangement to position the aircraft at the Royal Selangor Flying Club (RSFC) at Sungai Besi airfield in Kuala Lumpur.

Sadly however we immediately incurred a few technical issues preventing us from positioning the aircraft at RSFC per our agreement. As owners though we are now regualrly flying the aircraft and familiarising ourselves with this wonderful heavier than air machine. During which we did discover a performance shortfall which you can read about here