Guy on SAA selling its Heathrow Slots
2024-10-24
SAA considers selling Heathrow landing rights: ‘Like selling off the family silver’Read More →
Russia’s Heavy Lift Champions Part 2
2024-07-21
Steve Trichard continues his story on Russia’s massive super-heavy helicopters Although the Mil V-12 was the largest helicopter ever built, it never went into production, with only two prototypes constructed. The requirement for a heavy-lift helicopter therefore still existed. The Mi-6 design was by then 25 years old and soRead More →
Hugh Pryor Stop Cards Part 2
2024-03-24
Last month Hugh Described the over-zealous application of stop cards by ignorant health and safety officials. This month we start off with Hugh’s reply to a report he received on his flying: OFFICIAL Report on Stop Card ref 174/11/01 Raised on 9th-November-2002 Raised by Anon On 9th-November-2001, a Stop CardRead More →
Opening Shot
2024-02-18
Rayno Snyman has been fortunate enough to get himself in as the onboard photographer for the Leading Edge Aviation fire-fighting Hueys and Black Hawk in the January Cape fires. He has produced this beautifully framed and composed study of a Huey at work fighting fires. Rayno writes: “I shot thisRead More →
Saving the Angolan Giant Sable
2023-11-16
John Bassi Saving the Giant Sable in Angola Part one. John Bassi The giant sable bull arrived dangling beneath legendary wildlife pilot, Barney O’Hara’s MD500 helicopter, the antelope’s four-foot-long horns curving back toward its flanks like the scythe of a backhoe. As the aircraft came into view, hundreds of peopleRead More →
The SAAF’s C-130BZ Hercules upgrade controversy
2023-09-17
Darren Olivier In August one of the South African Air Force’s C-130BZ Hercules transporters, serial 409, arrived at Marshall Aerospace in Cambridge, UK, to begin an 18 month major servicing and rectification process. This will kick off a six year upgrade and major servicing programme, enabled by an initial R1Read More →
Have 2-stroke diesels finally arrived for planes?
2023-07-25
Guy Leitch asks the question in his Attitude for Altitude column. For years I have moaned about how crappy piston aircraft engines are. They are prohibitively expensive, yet have antiquated technology and are far less efficient and reliable than modern car engines. The modern car now has mature technology engineRead More →
The SAAF Boeing Business Jet ‘Air Force 1’ –
2023-07-20
Is it as bad as they claim?Darren Olivier – Defence Editor Reflections on Inkwazi Inkwazi, the South African Air Force’s Boeing Business Jet (BBJ) used for VIP transport, has been reliably racking up the flying hours this year. In just the past two weeks before writing this column it flewRead More →
Felix Gosher does it again – in Zambia
2023-07-15
In 2016 musician, Michael Ferguson and commercial Pilot Felix Gosher joined forces to offer underprivileged children the opportunity to experience the joys of flight, a privilege that many of us take for granted. The initiative was inspired by a song by Michael, ‘Paper Plane’ about a young boy with aRead More →