Sling to Europe

[jpitman]

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 yet unpainted, with 35 seconds to spare on the 7th day and by mid-morning all builders had taken a ride.

Now, four weeks later, the seven day Sling, ZU-SOL, is painted and ready to be delivered to her owners, The Airplane Factory’s agents in Europe, Solaris Wind and Aviation. Mike and James, suffering from withdrawal symptoms after their 2009 flight around the world, have decided to take her there themselves over a further 7 day period. They leave at 06h30, local SA time, from the factory at Tedderfield Air Park, tomorrow, Friday 1 April 2011. Their route takes them to Lilongwe, Nairobi, Khartoum, Alexandria, Sofia and Krakow. After 3 days in Poland they fly on to Friedrichshafen in Germany to display the Sling at Europe’s largest GA airshow.

Once again James and Mike’s progress will be tracked with a satellite tracking device and their position at each and every moment will be displayed on Google Earth on The Airplane Factory website, http://www.airplanefactory.co.za. They will also try to write a daily report and post photographs on the Airplane Factory website.

Please follow Mike, James and ZU-SOL’s progress.”

[Air Hog]

Good luck Mike and James, have a safe flight.

[Rhodie]

Had the pleasure of flying ZU- SOL with Mike.
Brilliant aerie, Brilliant guys, Wishing you blue sky's all the way to Europe

Neil Smit

[KFA]

Good luck and safe flying guys. I will be seeing you guys at Friederichhafen

[John Boucher]

Safe Trip gents... you do us proud!

[nicow]

Enjoy-stay safe!

[t-bird]

They are over the Zim border and flying over Tete in Mozambique to Llongwe.

[JvTonder]

Good luck and safe flying guys. I will be seeing you guys at Friederichhafen

Nou Stefan wat gaan jy daar maak, dalk die Safari bemark!

[Mogas]

Good luck and safe flying guys. I will be seeing you guys at Friederichhafen

Nou Stefan wat gaan jy daar maak, dalk die Safari bemark!

JAWOL!

[Nkwazi]

Godspeed James and Mike, we'll be tracking you!!

[Nkwazi]

They've landed safely in Lilongwe!!

[jpitman]

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 ”

[t-bird]

It seems if they have diverted to fly along the Nile. This is awesome !!

[Air Hog]

Would be interesting to know why they diverted in Egypt? T-bird, there must be another reason because they missed the Nile for most of the way.

ZU-SOL.JPG (50.08 KiB) Viewed 1595 times

[t-bird]

Maybe due to the wind direction ?