ZDL airborne

Thanks Gary for this great shot of our plane as Llew and I took the plane for a little warm-up flight to Ballito today.

Back from Johannesburg

Brandon and I flew my 2 planes back to Durban on Friday and had some challenging weather and clouds to navigate under, maintaining visibility of the ground and clear of the clouds. Got some great photos of each other while we flew..

Dave flying ZDL in the Greytown area - photo by Brandon

ZDL - must be the Ladysmith area

ZDL off the starboard wing of FYA, my 2 Sling aircraft

Dave catches Brandon in FYA sneaking up on his left

I am on autopilot

My favourite koppie Johannesburg side of Ladysmith

The cloud formations around us were stunning, although the sky closed over as we got closer to Durban

FYA off Dave's port wing

FYA caught sandwiched between ground and cloud. It gets scary when the two begin to meet and you need to decide if it's clear enough to continue forward or turn back

We saw some beautiful Johannesburg sunsets

My new favourite aircraft colourscheme - the new Airplane Factory demo plane

A fleet of aircraft were arriving at The Airplane Factory  for the new CAA mandatory instrument tests

The first production Sling taildragger for a soon-to-be-happy customer

Dave en route back to Durban in ZDL

This was to show Brandon that while he was flying the identical plane at near full throttle, with the constant speed propeller fitted to my plane I can achieve the same speed with a lower throttle setting, saving considerable fuel. Of course I could have flown faster, but we were flying in formation back home together.

Glorious Johannesburg clouds and sky

The car's headlights light up the yellow grass alongside the farm road with the airfield in the background as the sun goes down

Durban harbour looking gloomy and grey as we return early evening Friday after the 3 hour flight home from Johannesburg

ZDL and FYA

It's great to have photographer friends - here are some great shots of me flying my 2 planes, ZDL and FYA, taken by Trevor Viljoen and Gary Shepherd last week.

Dave takes off from Virginia Airport with Llewellyn

Taking a student for a flight in my flight school Sling FYA

Last day of Instructor's training

I did my last training flight with our Flight School A Grade Instructor and CFI Brad today in preparation for my Instructor's Rating Skills test during the week. It is going to be a bit of a crazy week as I have registered for two Commercial Pilot exams on Wednesday and Thursday and hope to do my Instructor's Flight Test on Friday. Today we had a bit of fun in the skyye, avoiding some clouds and practising some simulated emergency landing on some ploughed sugarcane fields and the beach. We also did turning stalls and some advanced manoeuvres, getting really comfortable with the aeroplane n various unusual attitudes.

In the skyye and taking a selfie on the last training flight of my Instructor's rating with Brad

Taking off from Virginia for our adventure in the skyye. Isn't is great to have aviation aficionados to capture these special moments on camera!! Thanks Brian.

Banking away to the left cutting our own path through the skyye away from the clouds

The coastline around Amanzimtoti seen from the Virginia General Flying area

I also had a chance to jump on the back of Brad's microlight just to help him put the plane away in the hangar. With gusting winds someone needs to hold the wing (which moves in the wind) whilst the other handles the hangar doors.

Sunday training

Great pic of me flying in the right seat, taking off from Virginia Airport to go to Ballito and Isithebe up the North Coast where I did some circuit training for my Instrcutor's rating today. Thanks Trevor Viljoen for the photo. 

Cockpit view of the north coast

The Tugela River Mouth as we turned to go inland to Isithebe

The view back to the Tugela Mouth with the Lighthouse just in from the shore

Instructor Brad (right) with me at the controls having "patter" training simulating my giving a student pilot instruction

What stunning weather and beautiful coastline to be following

Umhlanga coastline comes into view as we return to Durban

ZDL taking off

The aviation photographers are sharp with their lens and Brian caught us making our journey home from the airshow yesterday on the take-off from Pietermaritzburg airport. Awesome pic thanks Brian.

ZDL back

Finally, ZDL is back.. it's been since 25th Feb since the student pilot's nose-wheel collapse on the runway at Pietermaritzburg.. in between the weeks dragged by as the propellor hub was sent to new Zealand for repair.

Jean from The Airplane Factory flew ZDL back to Durban where Jean did some work on FYA (Our flight school plane) for me. I then dropped Jean up in Hilton at Eva's Field where he was flying another Sling back to Johannesberg for some work on the Sling fuel injection system.

Back in the pilot seat of ZDL, feeling slightly different after flying FYA all the way from Cape Town last, but it soon felt just like home again and is flying superbly.

Transiting through Pietermaritzburg airspace on the way home

I can fly and take pics at the same time

Awesome new beginning

I'm back in business with ZDL now home. Thanks to The Airplane Factory, Gareth, Andrew, Daniel and probably Lyle who all had a hand in re-wiring our plane, fixing the fuel-tank leak and respraying parts where corrosion was evident, as well as a host of other adjustments and upgrade of my dash and efis software. You guys did a great job and I'm very proud of you!

 

Louis and I took off this morning as early as we could get out of bed and up to Light Flight where Sling JAL is hangared so that we could leave JAL for it's 25 hour service and minor delivery adjustments in Johannesburg, and fetch ZDL flying back to Durban together in my plane. The sky was beautiful with a few patches where the morning mist had not yet lifted and the sky all the way to Johannesburg for the 2 1/2 hour flight was as smooth as a baby's bum. I've never had such a smooth flight to Jhb.

 

Camperdown from the air as we took off from Light Flight

 

The route to Johannesburg over the escarpment - some clouds to the right but clear ahead

The "koppies" just below around the Harrismith area

 

Once in Johannesburg Gareth went over a few of the adjustments and re-wiring done and I managed a look-around the factory - 2 of the new Sling 4-seaters were flown for the first time yesterday and a few other Slings were in production that I could see with more spread around the factory in various stages of assembly and painting.

 

Re-united with our Sling ZDL

Gareth, Production Manager at The Airplane Factory, chats to Louis about the 25 hour service due now on his new Sling JAL. We hope to return to Tedderfield next week to fetch it and then fly back in our respective planes.

Louis inspects the new Sling 4 as well as Sling 4 OMG below that took their maiden test flights yesterday. The Airplane Factory reports orders for the 4-seater of 20 at present, the first of which was delivered recently.

Got the Sling decals back on our plane ZDL, although Gareth forgot the dot on the i

 

 

The clouds were starting to gather on the route back to Durban - windguru said it would cloud over by 2pm, hence the need to fly there and back all in a morning, getting home by 12.

This cloud was awesome. With them gathering, and the temperature rising to 30 deg c, the air en-route back was a bit more turbulent, but nothing like the horrendous flight we had to Jhb not too long ago through the storm clouds.

en-route Louis (left) and I in the pilot seat getting the feel of the re-wired and sorted ZDL. We flew flight level FL085 to Jhb and FL075 back using the ENO rule.. even flight levels flying on a heading between 180 - 359 deg, and odd flight levels for headings between 0 and 179 deg. Flights are further separated by 500 feet for those flying VFR (Visual Flight Rules - in sight of the ground) and IFR flights (Instrument Flight Rules, for those rated to fly in clouds). In this way the risk of mid-air collisions between planes can be reduced by changing the levels at which planes fly depending on the type of flight and direction headed. We also had approved routings from the Johannesburg East (KZN) and Johannesburg South (Gauteng) Flight Information Sectors, so we were on their radars for most of the flight there and back. To do this they give you a squawk code (like 4507) which you dial into your aircraft transponder and this sends a unique signal back to the air taffic guys who are able to spot you on their radar like commercial airliners. Other general aviation flights use a squawk code of 2000 which enables them to be seen, but does not identify which plane it is. Useful little gadget. We were on the ground home by noon.