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 and then manufacturing preparation that has been invested in getting The Airplane Factory to where it now finds itself. The time available to prepare for the delivery to Europe has been woefully short, yet it all seems to have come together.
Right now we’re settled into perfect lodgings in Lilongwe, Malawi, after a total of nearly 8 hours flying into a steady 5 knot headwind. The beautiful Johannesburg weather got steadily worse and worse and we ended up dodging CB’s and finally flying into light rain. But ZU-SOL performed flawlessly (once we got the autopilot working properly) and now we’re going to get an early night. We’re both absolutely exhausted from what feels like not only a day’s effort, but the weeks and months leading here too.
We’re off early to Nairobi tomorrow, provided the weather play’s ball, and we’ll report at more length when we get there. Meanwhile here are a couple of photos to prove that we made it to Kamuzu International.
Adios Mike and James
