I just got home after delivering a brand-new American Champion Denali Scout from the factory to a dealer in Boise. One of the integral parts of any ferry flight is a careful preflight inspection—both for the pilot's safety but also to assure that any little thing that is wrong is fixed at the factory before the airplane leaves. It's cheaper and more efficient to do it in house than for the manufacturer to have to pay for a fix under the warranty. Nevertheless, I often feel as if I'm insulting the people who built the airplane as I do a fussy preflight—they're rightfully proud of their work and I'm an outsider who may be giving the impression I'm second-guessing it. As I was going through all that had to be done to depart, company co-owner Jerry Mehlhaff, Jr. came up to me and said he wanted to make certain I checked over everything and stayed in the area after takeoff to confirm everything was working in flight. "We've checked it over, but a second pair of eyes is always a good thing." I liked his attitude a lot.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.avweb.com/flight-safety/technique/preflight-obsessive-compulsive-or-laissez-faire