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

It’s the final weekend of the month and that traditionally means that the entire Airplane Factory staff complement gets off early on Friday and that no-one works overtime on the weekend. Mike, Jean, Gareth and James, however, are here putting some of the last minute touches (what Jean refers to as “tweaks”) on ZU-TAF before

Vaughan, Bearcat, Jason and everyone else who supported us at the first flights – thanks for that. Bearcat and Vaughan, what awesome shots! Vaughan, I’ve stolen the flying shot with the sun behind to put on or website. I hope that’s OK. We did some more flying yesterday afternoon and it looks very much like

What an emotional roller-coaster! We’ve spent much of the past week keeping open the gap which would have allowed us to get to Oshkosh before the end of the show. Yesterday put the lid on that – with the CAA sticking to its guns on the 40 proving hours they require before issuing an authority

Last night Jean and Chris were up until 3am fitting the canopy while the rest of the factory had their first full nights sleep in ages. As you can see she is really taking shape now. As soon as the canopy sets we will be working on the interior and then the task of installing

It’s been a mixed day. We made awesome progress last night and our machine is now ready to fly, save that we need to wait the full curing period for the bonding agent used to attach the canopy perspex to the frame. The engine is sweet and we had some anxious moments as we weighed

I’m afraid in all the excitement we’ve been a bit slack on providing proper updates over the past 48 hours. Not through lack of progress, but perhaps a little bit through frustration at the pace of it. Yesterday was a great day. We were honoured by the presence of Mr Zakhele Thwala, the Director of

On Friday afternoon I (James) flew ZU-TAE, the Airplane Factory demo aircraft, down to Durban for the Virginia Airshow over the weekend. We had 6 Slings on the field and lots of interest from the public. I was the lucky one, back here at the factory everyone was working non-stop. What a great feeling to

The Airplane Factory crew has been working nearly non-stop to get everything finalised before departure on hopefully the 20th of July. James had and interview with Radio 702 in South Africa, and we also featured on Carte Blanche on TV. Below is the podcast from the radio interview, and the video clips from the Carte

The all-nighters have started as D-day for Sling 4 ATW approaches at the speed of light. Although the prototype ATW Sling 4 won’t be making an appearance at Virginia, the Sling 4 launch at 10h00 on Tuesday 19 July is a fixed date and she’ll leave for Oshkosh the next day or as soon thereafter