Laura McDermid Sling Aircraft was awarded the coveted August Raspet award at EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh this year. The award is given annually to a business or person that has made an outstanding contribution to aircraft design. Highly regarded for their durability, fuel efficiency and excellent performance, Slings are theRead More →
MAF SA’s missionary pilot, Mark Liprini, shares a day from his logbook. It was the usual quiet morning in the office. I was in the process of demolishing a delightful hot chapati, to accompany the fresh coffee. My logbooks had just been written up from the flying earlier in theRead More →
Prognostications Chris Martinus – President: Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association – South Africa As the world trundles precipitously into 2024, fraught with wars and political and economic upheaval, it is a good time to reflect on past chaos and plot the course for general aviation in these seemingly apocalyptic times.Read More →
For the pilot with the means to step up from piston singles to true cabin-class personal transport, the Cessna C340 is a great proposition. It is also the aircraft that many airline pilots chose to move down to – which says a lot about its capabilities. The subject of ourRead More →
Peter Garrison I take a miserly pleasure in finding big expensive books on sale at desperately low prices. A bookstore near me, another victim of Amazon, closed recently, disposing of most of its inventory, during its final weeks, at progressively more drastic discounts. I had admired one book in aRead More →
Peter Garrison ‘Hinge moment’ is the technical name for the force required to deflect a control surface. In small, relatively slow aeroplanes hinge moments are not very large; pilots move the controls with ease. But as control surfaces get larger and speeds get higher, hinge moments grow rapidly. Hinge momentsRead More →
Guy Leitch How the FAA is Fixing Recreational Flying We often forget that South Africa still has some world class institutions that make our country a much better place than that supposed paragon of excellence – the USA. The American banking system is archaic compared to South Africa and ourRead More →
Pooley’s Air Pilot’s Manual #1: Flying Training Guy Leitch Pooley’s Air Manuals have set a new standard in essential texts for the Private Pilot Exams – and they are now publishing the series for Southern Africa. The first book in the series is simply called ‘Flight Training’ and if thereRead More →
Jim Davis with Guy Leitch. Images Guy Leitch There is a popular saying that you can’t have a plane with too much power. Piper put that to the test when they increased the engine in their beautiful Comanche from 180 hp to a stonking 400 hp. So – does itRead More →
The future is here Text and detail images by by Guy Leitch The star at this year’s Aero Expo South Africa, held at Wonderboom, was the Diamond DA-62. The demo aircraft was flown out to South Africa especially for the event – showing the easy capability of this latest generationRead More →
