Its good to see that there's something interesting to read again rather than the drinking stories of 2 or 3 individuals - sorry!
I think this particular oil leak point has to be considered against lingistics and those with an axe to grind against NC. Not having been to the club recently I can only comment based on what others have written above. Surely if someone landed and said the port undercarriage felt a bit soft, you, an instructor or the engineer would go and "have a look" to see if the oleo extension was correct and the tyre pressure good. This is different to actually meddling with it yourself.
It would be useful if someone with more knowledge than myself could list the points of aircraft maintenance/inspection that the pilot/owner can attend to and those which require an engineer. Speedtape, you seem informed - what is EASA?
I suppose we should be happy that someone is offering fixed wing training and solo hire at EGNT again, otherwise a lot of us would be stuffed (or have an hours drive to EGNC/NV). But, we DO all want to know that the aircraft we fly are safe. Whilst, the responsibility falls on the pilot to decide whether the aircraft is airworthy during his walkaround, we ARE reliant on the honesty of the hire organisation to have fulfilled its Public Transport engineering duties. Didn't club instructors in the old days do stuff like bending aileron trim tabs by hand if after a flight it was commented "it rolls to the left/right a bit when you take your hands off". How many times have nav and landing lights been left u/s for months. It was actions like this that we just "grinned and beared".
So what is the conclusion here? Its great that we can hire aircraft again at EGNT. But is the NC ownership as white as it seems, or are we all just being fooled? Are there any connections with the old characters in the club which led to the current ownership?
Finally, the new hire rate does seems expensive these days at 100 pounds plus the landing fee. But I did see in last month's Pilot Magazine the review of UK flying schools, this price is still one of the cheapest. By the way, I think Ashton Aviation behind Samson is doing a Warrier solo during the week for about 10 pounds an hour less than NC.