James just called me (at 5.45 pm SA time) to say that they are not able to get away today. A few reasons .. Mauritius ATC will not let them fly through their airspace on a VFR flight plan at night – plus they do not have permission to fly though their airspace anyway (yet).

OK, so you got the basic story from Mike – we’re back in an hotel room (this time much more humble!), ZU-TAF is back in the hangar, we’ve had a first class Chinese Creole meal and now we’re settling in for a quiet sleep. Today has been a good example of how travel experiences aren’t

James and Jean are now over the halfway mark to Réunion Island and we can see they are flying closer to Madagascar”s coast at the moment. A bit of info on Réunion: it is a French island situated about 200 km (120 miles) south west of Mauritius. To get an idea of how it looks

James & Jean are still settling in Réunion after a long flight & as soon as we get any updates from them we will post it for you. In the meantime, the one aviation forum in South Africa has more photos of yesterday’s departure which you can go and have a look at at the

Howdy everyone, A big thank you to all of you for your support and involvement. After my first night over the Indian ocean in conditions I am about to illustrate, I now know why Mike and James appreciate and value your support so much. It can get serious up there at times and it is

In a way it was a blessing to have the delays. We worked so hard and so late every day that all of us were absolutely exhausted. So, early yesterday morning when Jean told James on the phone that we had a fuel leak that we absolutely had to fix and he then told Jean

Breaking news – Sadly the Sling will not be leaving for Reunion today. It has been necessary to delay departure by another day because of IFR conditions in Durban and also becuase of a small leak in one of the ‘B’ accessory fuel tanks. Right now we’re busy removing the adjacent ‘A’ tank so as

First things first – thanks to Sias Dreyer for setting up a magnificent weather tool for The Airplane Factory Aviators to use in the circumnavigation. More about that in a minute. Sadly I failed to take a photograph of the left wing main tank off (perhaps someone else out there has one?), but to get

Herewith some photos of the last few days while we made up our 40 hours of flying.

One of the most important aspects of a flight around the world in a light aircraft is getting rest so that you can remain sharp at all times. In past trips Mike and I have often found that the hassle factor associated with finding accommodation, getting currency, food to eat and suchlike outweighs the value