Today the Sling 5577 completed its first test flight.  See some photos below of this wonderful day.

What a week – the highs and lows just didn’t stop! By yesterday morning, Friday 3 March 2011, the final day, the team was beginning to get quite serious cabin fever and a strange “Big Brother” sensation was beginning to descend upon everyone. Nevertheless, all pulled their weight on the final straight (though some more

One problem with building an airplane in 7 days is that there’s not a whole lot of time left over to report developments to the rest of the world. Anyhow, we’re now 5 days down (it’s 08h30 on Thursday morning) and our baby is really beginning to look like something that may actually fly quite

The Sling 7 day build is getting along fabulously. Photos below show the team members and the developments to late afternoon on the second day (Sunday). All bets are still on for 7 days, if not 6. Team members are –Men : Mike Blyth, Jean d’Assonville, James Pitman, Gareth Bosch, Vince NtuliWomen: Nomfundo Xulu, Charmaine

On 26 February 2011, in Hangar 44 Tedderfield Air Park, The Airplane Factory team and friends will commence the building of a standard Airplane Factory Sling LSA from scratch in seven days. Working as many hours as necessary in order to complete the aircraft on time, the full team will be living on the airfield

Andrew Lane, the purchaser of the first Sling built by The Airplane Factory for delivery to a customer, had the public christen his hangar at Tedderfield on Saturday evening 5 February. This also posed the opportunity to get all 6 Slings in the air together on one of the most beautiful Johannesburg evenings in months.

On 2 February 2011 Mike, James and Jean’s good friend, climbing partner and co-movie maker, Marianne Schwankhart visited The Airplane Factory to help capture the historic flight of 4 Slings in formation. Although the light was poor, the pilots had a great deal of fun flying the Slings in close formation over some beautiful Gauteng

ZU-JVL, Johan Van Leeuwen’s Sling built by Michelle Leuch flew for the first time on Thursday afternoon, 13 January 2011. Although some snags had to be resolved before the first flight, save for a few minutes off radio communication breakdown, ZU-JVL flew like a dream on her first flight. Following initial flights from the beautifully

From 26 to 29 November 2010 The Airplane Factory’s demonstration airplane, ZU-TAE, appeared on the roof of the Hyde Park shopping centre on Jan Smuts Avenue at the Joburg Food Wine Design Fair. Set on wood chips amongst SA’s finest culinary and design delights, she created quite a stir. The most regular question asked was,

The first Sling built from kit by a customer of The Airplane Factory took to the air for the first time on 1 November 2010. ZU-MDK was built, with great patience and forgiveness, by Michiel de Koker, The Airplane Factory’s first kit builder. Luckily Michiel is a large scale radio control model aficionado who was