When the production prototype Sling , ZU-TAF was flown around the world during 2009 at take-off and landing she was loaded to 965kg, some 365kg above the maximum all up weight applicable to the light sport aircraft category for which she was designed. Yet she proved herself again and again, performing consistently well at that

James’ laptop got busted, but they managed to get a few photos through to us of Prague and the airshow at Friedrichshafen. They will be leaving from Zurich in Switzerland today on a commercial flight and head back to South Africa via Dubai.

We’ve been in Radom for a couple of days checking out our prospective distributor (Solaris Group Aviation and Wind Sp z o.o.’s) premises and negotiating terms of distributorship (within quite a bit of food and drink in between, including what turned into a profoundly disabling vodka drinking session for me). Luckily I got in a

Yooohooo, we’re in Krakow, we’re alive and there’s good food and beer! Even better, Krakow is absolutely beautiful, full of history and, being a university town, is full of students. If you have a Sling, it’s well worth the flight! Getting away from Mitilini proved a little more of a task than we’d planned. Once

Getting out of Egypt was as we expected – a bit of a nightmare. One bit of advice I can give everyone – do not fly a private aircraft into Sudan or Egypt. I am sure there are other countries in the world which are “small private aircraft unfriendly” but in my opinion those 2

We are now in Alexandria after landing at Borg Al Arab airport which is the local military airport. We mistakenly thought that the airport at Alexandria was closed for repairs. Luckily we are not in trouble – actually everyone is very hospitable and helpful. Now we have to mission through to get out of here

We tried to get an early start by racing to Wilson airport before the sun rose only discover that we had left our all important backup Garmin 495 behind … Right now we are on the apron at Khartoum International airport waiting for our “agent” by the name of Ayatollah to organize 200 litres of

Another perfect day in Africa! Finally, having left the airfield at 20h30 we’re settled into Cassie’s place, “the Sugar Bowl” in Langata, Nairobi. We’ve decided to report on the day backwards, since things have definitely got better and better as the hours have passed! So here goes – Just finished up a feast of rare

What a long day, week, month (and five years!). Getting to Lilongwe today was more than just a one day flight, it was the culmination of all the hard effort leading to the flight. The seven day Sling was successfully assembled in seven days only because of the extent of the dedicated development work, testing

The final touches are being put on ZU-SOL just 10 hours before take-off for Europe. She looks beautiful in her new paint job, has 4 25 liter additional ferry fuel tanks fitted and is just being subjected to a final inspection. This is what things look like at 18h30. Here are a couple of shots