Monday, 8 August 2011 The Night of Shooting Stars from Jean’s perspective 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...

They are in Reunion safe and sound. They will be staying the night there before leaving for the Maldives tomorrow. Have a look at our website where there is lots more info. http://airplanefactory.co.za/sling4atw.asp. And yes they will be taking lots of pics and filming too

By the way these posts are actually coming from Andrew Pitman. I am James' younger brother and will be updating while he is away on his behalf.

8 August - We had a bit of a surprise. James and Jean are already safe on the ground. Wind howling 30 kts. All good. The feed got stuck on the website and we are trying to get our website hosting company to sort out the bug although today is a holiday day in SA

As you are probably aware we recently completed testing the Sling 4 Prototype and have the authority to fly. Tomorrow morning, the 6th of August at 10h00 myself and Jean, will depart from Tedderfield Airpark to fly east around the world to Los Angeles, where we have a company that distributes Slings...

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 wor...

During early March 2011 Mike Blyth, James Pitman, Jean d’Assonville and 7 others, 5 guys and 5 girls, built an Airplane Factory Sling from a standard Airplane Factory Sling kit in 7 days. Working day (and often night) the team managed to assemble the entire aircraft in the 7 day period. She flew, as...

She does fly! Now for some painting and rest before leaving for Europe. (I have taken the liberty of using three of the photos posted by Jabba on Avcom - Jabba, if you have any objection please let me know and I'll remove them. Thanks, more to follow.) 1103_05%20ZU-SOL%20First%20Take%20Off.jpg 1103_...

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 straig...

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 soon! ...

The Sling 7 day build is getting along fabulously. Photos below show the team members and the developments to toward the end of 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, VinceNtuli Women: N...

Thanks everyone for the support. All is in place for the commencement of the build tomorrow morning, 7am. Like all great project things will start slowly with a good cup of tea and a rusk. We'd love to see all of you here at Teddeerfield. Allcomers are welcome to sit down and have a cuppa while you ...

This Saturday, 26 February 2011, 5 guys and 5 girls will be starting an ambitious project - to build an Airplane Factory Sling LSA from a standard kit, in 7 days. If all goes according to plan the aircraft will fly on Friday afternoon, 4 March 2011. Not only that - this is the same Sling that The Ai...

The Airplane Factory, creator of the Sling, will be conducting a home aircraft builder training course from 09h00 to 16h00 on Saturday 30 October 2010. The course will be run by Mike Blyth, Jean d'Assonville and The Airplane Factory Team. It will cover all issues required to prepare oneself to const...