Sling Durban visits The Airplane Factory

My trip to The Airplane Factory in pics. Wow, the factory in Johannesburg is pumping with over 200 airplanes flying or in production and more on order. My Sling's 400 hour service was like the pitt-stop at a Grand Prix with parts and covers coming off, the leather seats being treated, fine-tuning and spark splugs being changed and a huge checklist of regulatory maintenance checks being done. It was also the opportunity for the CAA to inspect the plane for addition to our Flight School register.

Mainenance guys Dan and Nic with Airplane Factory Director Jean giving ZDL its checks.

Me en route to Johannesburg, home of The Airplane Factory

Passing by the mountains half-way

My daughter is teaching English in South Korea and this is what her kids came up with

Nic at The Aiplane Factory working on ZDL

New Slings in production at The Aiplane Factory

One of the reasons I love my Slings - designed and made in South Africa by a great team of incredible guys!

Dan working an an IS motor upgrade from Rotax

Not sure these lines are straight but he was giving it a bash

Not enough room in the hangars for all the planes, so there's a parking lot. I think I counted over 15 planes at the Factory

ZDLs tail inspection cover comes off to check the cabling and connector rods

This is what my prop hub looks like under the nose cone

ZDLs wheel nuts get checked and the tyres pumped - about the only rime it's possible to get to the valves to inflate them

Tea-break and the grease-monkeys sit on the wall

Dan checking my software and audio warning signals for the CAA inspection

Piet, the CAA Inspector makes the trip to Tedderfield to look over my plane for its addition to the flight school register as a training plane

Stefan, another of the factory's team working here in the aviation industry

The Airplane Factory Director, Jean, is hands-on and brilliant when it comes to trouble-shooting.. making an adjustment to my seat catch mechanism.

The flight home showed how brown the winter grass is looking. Due to a gathering storm and winds I had to divert and re-route my jounrey home via Newcastle, Eshowe and the coast back to Virginia

The haze nearer the coast was bad and several airports were declared IMC - instrument meteorological conditions and not suitable for landing due to the poor visibility

I cam across patches of cloud which I had to circumnavigate to get through to the coast

Darkness fell and after the 3 hour flight I had to dim the computer EFIS screens which became too bright and landed in the dark after 6pm, mission accomplished.