I have just chatted to James and Mike in their hotel room in Soa Tome. I find it hard to put my emotions in words as these two good friends take on a mammoth adventure while simultaneously setting new standards for light aviation. I have had the pleasure of being intimately involved with this project

We’re here in this awesome place which feels like it comes from a different century, feeling very emotional. Mike’s asleep right now, but we’ll try get better comms later and send proper messages. Thanks to all who’ve helped and we’ll be in touch soon. What a flight – what moments, so beautiful, so out there

Mike and James departed amid a huge farewell from Springs Airfield in South Africa.  Herewith some photos from today’s celebrations.

The date of departure has been moved to 11am on Saturday the 18th of July 2009. The Sling Around the World team have put in a lot of extra hours preparing the aircraft and flight testing and need an unhurried final preparation time and this will give them one more day to double-check everything but

Due to unforeseen delays with some documentation, we had to move our departure date to Friday the 17th of July at 10am.

It has been a few hectic days. At the moment we are busy programming the IndigoSat Aircraft Traffic system, and will test it fully tomorrow while flying around. The landing gear was altered and the new one has gone to spray-painting which we will have back tomorrow as well. Will keep you posted on any

Herewith are photos from our flying the past few days. No substantial problems have been identified. Jean d’Assonville said “I can’t believe it, she handles like an aerobatic machine, you’ve got to have her acrobatically certified.” Working currently on auto pilot, the propeller, and other increasingly finer considerations.

Due to delays in documentation and flight permits, Sling 002’s date of departure for Oshkosh has been set back to Thursday 16 July 2009. Departure will be at 10am from Springs Airfield.

Today was spent between more flights, double-checking the autopilot system, the new IndigoSat Aircraft tracking system and making appointments for all the inoculations we will need for the countries we are flying through. We should also be getting our new website-interface add-on which will enable all website visitors to get a live update via the

Test flight day is here! We are conducting the first test flights at lunch time, so hopefully by later this afternoon we will post some photos for you. Update: Absolute joy as the test flight went perfectly!