To Johannesburg we go

As our aircraft were manufactured by The Airplane Factory in Johannesburg, I prefer to take them back there for most major services. This means we sometimes fly there with friends to fly our plane back, or fly there in our plane with them to bring theirs back. My pal Louis has joined me or me him on several of these flights and on this occasion Ryan joined me on the flight back.

The cockpit of Louis' Sling IS, JAL

Dave and Louis in JAL

We saw some clouds

Tedderfield Aeropark, home of The Airplane Factory, south of Johannesburg

Slings at the factory

The koppies around the Ladysmith area

Ryan and I made the trip back in FYA which I had left at the factory for servicing

You can tell how heavy the cloud cover is by looking at the shadows.. nice open sky today

Arrived safely in Durban with FYA

Durban harbour and the city always an awesome sight after a 3-hour flight from Johannesburg

Vrginia Airport off the wingtip of FYA

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

Visiting Tedderfield, home of 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 planes 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.

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 handsome guys who are working 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.