Great account, Chevvron.
My first flight in an AX-3 was also in F59EE at a farm strip not far from Halton.
I went on to do about 500 hours in AX-3s. It was a great wee trainer- much easier to land than the taildragger Thruster- though the nose-wheel was a bit vulnerable and it had very limited range.
My friend Hugh Knox flew a later version, with bigger fuel capacity, from Shetland to Norway and back to Scotland via Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands. Belgium, France, England, and, just to cross a bit more more water, Ireland!