Gonna get there

Well it looks like the weather is improving over Botswana, so with a bit of rain here and there we should make it to Gabarone for an overnight on Wednesday, then on to Maun, Nguma island lodge in the Okavango Delta on Thursday, Kasane on Saturday and Victoria Falls on Monday...

Here is the weather report for Kasane. We will get there on Saturday morning showing high clouds and a few scattered low clouds which will be perfect for flying with light wind from the east so not a headwind. Kasane is going to be interesting.. it's at the conjunction / borders of Namibia, Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe - all 4 countries share a border point.

Kasane is quite "large" with a population of 7 600 and is the northern-most point of Botswana on the Chobe River.

Weather for Kasane showing Sat 15th when we arrive

Weather bedevils

Our Sling Africa Tour 2014 kicks off this week coming if the weather will allow it.

Already it looks like we will have to move our departure forward to Wednesday due to clouds and rain and will have to fly up to Johannesburg with Mango or Kulula on Tuesday to pick up our plane as it is still in Johannesburg for the accident repairs.

If you look at the first grid of green/red zones I prepared for the route forward we will have to pick a route where there are no clouds or rain which is proving difficult and looks like we will have to overnight in Gabarone which was not on the original itinerary. We are checking the weather forecasts several times a day as they only get more accurate as we get closer to our departure.

Mishap on Runway 16 Pietermaritzburg

It is never pleasant to report a mishap.. fortunately not me, but unfortunately in our jointly owned Sling ZDL... Llewellyn on his first solo cross-country training flight to Pietermaritzburg as PIC.

From the pics it appears that there was a harder than normal touchdown on the nosewheel which collapsed, letting the plane grind to a halt on the propellers in the middle of runway 16. Eye-witness reports however was that there appeared to be nothing unusual about the landing which looked perfectly within all limits, but that the nosewheel had collapsed. Chatting to the insurance assessor, he is of the opinion that the high incidence of nose-wheel collapses on the Sling Aircraft, compared to other aircraft, indicates that the design of the wheel could be improved and that the margin for landing deviations from normal is too narrow. So perhaps this is something for The Airplane Factory to react on.

In the meantime, timing is very bad as we are due to leave on our Sling Africa Tour to Botswana and Vic Falls in 10 days and this is leaving little time for repairs. Andrew from The Airplane Factory has been marvellous in getting spares down to Pmb within a day or so and whilst the plane has been temporarily repaired it needs to get a special permit to fly it back to Johannesburg for full tolerances testing and clearance from the CAA to fly. It also means we have to fly to Bots with a temporary fixed propeller until we can get a new constant-speed hub and propellers ordered. Damn!!

Collapsed nosewheel of ZDL

Oops, luckily didn't flip over and the props kept the fusilage off the deck. This also shows where the centre of gravity is and why it's important even when taxiing and after landing to hold the stick back to keep pressure off the nose-wheel.

Up and away

Calvin takes to the air with me for the first time to the Durban harbour

Francois, our guest from Amsterdam enjoys his first very light aircraft flight

The best time to fly - Virginia Airport at sunrise

Durban beachfront at 6am

Close-up view of the Stadium

From Virginia Airport, looking across the Umgeni River to the Stadium

Grey skies and sea at the harbour mouth showing Durban's Bluff and signal tower

Sling Durban Agents

Our flight school has been appointed by The Airplane Factory as their Sling aircraft Durban Agents. 

This means that we are now the official distributors of this incredible aircraft in Durban. Thanks guys, it really has been a journey with our own Sling ZDL # 34 and we have watched you grow from strength to strength of the past few short years. We are delighted to be part of this amazing team of incredibly driven people who have become our Sling family as much as our fellow aviators and friends who also own Sling aircraft.

This blog started when I took my first steps towards getting my pilot's licence and my decision at that early stage to buy a Sling airplane after looking at everything else that was on the market. I have loved every step of the journey and that journey has had our own Sling ZDL as an integral part. With the Durban agency I hope to see the family in Durban grow even stronger.

Thanks guys for this opportunity.

The 3 Slings in production - 4 seater, 2 seater and taildragger

Ed flies

Took to the skies with Ed.. loving it.

Seaplane Rating

Studying for my SeaPlane Rating which I am doing on San Diego harbour in April is proving mighty interesting. In addition to airspeed and groundspeed, one has water currents to contend with and you have a "waterspeed" as well. 

Waterspeed

Therefore if you are moving with the current at 5 knots you would have an airspeed and groundspeed of 5 kts and a waterspeed of 0 kts, as the plane is moving in the direction the body of water is flowing in. It is usually more preferable to take off downcurrent than upwind as a take-off against a 5 kts current would need an airspeed of 25 kts to counter the effect of drag on the floats with the current.

Taking off in a SeaPlane has 3 stages of taxiing at idle or displacement speed, ploughing, and on the step planing as in the illustration above.

Sailing the SeaPlane backwards

Integral to learning to handle the SeaPlane is learning to sail it, as much as learning to take-off and land, as the plane is mobile the second you cast off from the dock. The plane automatically weathervanes, so sailing usually means backwards as the wind and/or current carries the plane while you use your airrudders and waterrudders to steer backwards similar to reversing a car... left rudder and left aileron down causes the plane to move

backwards to the right for example.

Direction limited

Often one needs to take off in confined spaces, such as rivers or canals where the direction of take-off is limited, so crosswind take-offs are common. Similarly lakes or bays are often surrounded by trees and mountains where again the most suitable take-off direction is limited. Glassy water surfaces also present their own problems and other users of water space - swimmers, boats, kayaks, windsurfers, kite-surfers and waterskiers create obstacles (as well as potential floating obstacles.. logs, debris etc) as well as water disturbance to consider whereas land planes usually have controlled airspace and clear level runways to take off from.

All fascinating stuff. The SeaPlane course is on San Diego harbour and involves my obtaiing FAA acceptance of my foreign licence and an American licence being obtained with my SeaPlane rating at the end of the course and after an exam and a "checkride" /flight test by an FAA examiner.


Take-offs can also follow a curved path as seen in the illustration where one has to take account of centrifugal forces and wind direction for optimum take-off handling.

Practicing Navex

Llewellyn does his navigation exercise to Pietermaritzburg on Tuesday so we did a practice one today, making sure he could file a flight plan and handle the navigation by map with the plane onboard computer Efis switched off. The sky was bright and clear, although the sun was baking down and the workload handling headings, radio work and timing the legs of the flight almost overwhelming. But we had a great flight and noted that the upgrade of Pmb airport is almost complete. What a lovely little airport. Llew should have his licence in ZDL by the time we fly to Botswana in March.

Nagle Dam and KwaZulu-Natal's own Table Mountain to the left

Llew is sure he can do this when he does his training exercise on Tuesday

The harbour and Durban's Bluff on our return from Pietermaritzburg

Zimbabwe permit in place

It's a month to go to our Okavango Delta and Chobe National Game Park, Botswana, and Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe Sling Africa Tour 2014. Our Zimbabwe Flight Permit has been obtained giving us the right to fly in and land at the Victoria Falls International Airport. We are busy now with the Botswana landing and overfly permit which will take a few more days and we have 7 aircraft joining the tour hosted by the Sling Airplane Factory. The Africa tour sets off on the 12th March from Durban and 13th March from Johannesburg. Download the Tour info off my SkyDrive here. There's still time to join us.

We're adding country flags to our airplane Sling ZU-ZDL as we fly to them - clockwise from top left - Zimbabwe, South Africa, Mozambique and Botswana

Civil Aviation Authority gets going

It took a visit to the SA CAA offices in Midrand Johannesburg this morning to get a commitment, in line with their Quality Management System, to get cracking on our application for approval as an Aviation Training Organisation (ATO). To date it is 4 months since I first made contact with them, and it was apparent at the meeting that they have not actually begun to read the over 300 pages of documents I submitted for the application process. This is unacceptable and service delivery at it's worst. I have now been promised fast-track attention in getting the certification process completed so that Durban Skyye Flight School can get airborne. Thanks to Jason for his thanks and reminder that it is us aviators who keep them in their jobs, and without aviation there would be no need for any CAA.

I also paid a visit to Grand Central Airport, which is situated close to the CAA offices and would for future visits be a handy airport to land at.

The unusual water tower near Grand Central Airport.

The CAA's quality management system promises a documented process with continuous feedback!! Let's hope that they can actually start living up to this pledge.

The customer's (that's me) expectations should be exceeded

The damaged building at OR Tambo in Johannesburg where a British Airways plane recently collided with it after taking a wrong turn

Mango charged a very reasonable R430 to fly from Durban to Johannesburg, but an outrageous R1500 to fly back

Durban city and the harbour from a slightly higher altitude than I am normally able to take a photo from in our plane.

300 and climbing

Yes, today's flight took me to my 300 hours flying time. Wow, amazing to believe I have spent this amount of time in the air as Pilot-in-Command of an aircraft!

Yesterdays photos of the Durban beachfront were about the best I have seen and I am on a quest to find the right photo as the backdrop to our kiosk at Virginia Airport for our flight school. However when I enlarged them to the size of the wall they came out a bit fuzzy, so I enlisted the help of Justin who took some stunning pics of our plane before. He is a whizz with the camera and is able to produce photos in raw and jpg format. The pics looked great and you can watch this space for them as soon as they have been processed.

In the meantime the flight, while Justin was snapping away, took me to my 300 mark.
 

Dinner in Southbroom

The red cabin light is optimal for night vision

The darkness ahead beckons for those who dare

 It's amazing to have friends who can fly with us on jaunts around South Africa. SAA (his airplane registration) pilot Marc's flying tales inspired me to get my licence.. initially an NPL licence like his, then I convinced him to upgrade to the PPL licence and follow me in getting my night rating. This has taken us in our respective planes on adventures to Cape Town and the southern-most tip of Africa, to Mozambique, Mkuze Game Reserve, Clarens and Golden Gate, night escapades for dinner in Margate and in March we are off to Botswana - Okavango Delta and Chobe, and then to Zimbabwe and Victoria Falls.

Llew and ZDL Margate

Last night we ventured off to Margate on a night flight on a beautiful evening, although it became quite hot and windy. We got to Margate Airport where we parked the planes, hired a car for the evening and drove to Southbroom for dinner, flying home much later. I had pre-arranged with Virginia airport to leave their runway lights on for us and we only managed to get to bed after midnight. Awesome flying but the pics just cannot do justice to the spectacular view of the sparkling lights that danced below us. The half-moon cruised in and out of wispy clouds that trailed it.

Durban Harbour with the reflection of our onboard flight computer (Efis) and GPS 

Durban Skyye

In preparation for the opening of our flight school, Durban Skyye, I was up in the air from 5.30 this morning to take some pics of what Durban has to offer, from the harbour, along the golden mile to Umhlanga and Ballito.

Umhlanga beachfront

Durban beachfront with the Moses Mabhida Stadium in the background

GoPro view of the plane and beachfront

Durban's harbour entrance

Virginia Airport - FAVG

Louis gives me a hand whilst I take some pics