Project 5577
5 woman, 5 men, 7 days to build, 7 days to fly
At the end of February 2011 the Sling 5577 project was launched where 5 men and 5 women built a Sling in 7 days. Mike & James then left in April 2011 to deliver this uniquely created Sling to Poland in 7 days to its eager new owner.
The Sling was also on show at Aero Friedrichshafen in Germany,The News Posts
From This Expedition
On 26 February 2011, in Hangar 44 Tedderfield Air Park, The Airplane Factory team and friends will commence the building of a standard Airplane Factory Sling LSA from scratch in seven days. Working as many hours as necessary in order to complete the aircraft on time, the full team will be living on the airfield for the duration of the build. If all goes according to plan the aircraft, to be registered ZU-SOL, should fly on Friday afternoon, 4 March 2011. Then on 1 April 2011 Mike and James will set off to fly the aircraft for delivery in Europe. They plan, weather permitting, to fly into Krakow seven days later, to finalise negotiations with The businesses partners in Europe, Solaris Wind and Aviation. Then they fly on to the airshow in Friederichshafen before return to SA on 14 April. ZU-SOL will be left with Solaris for European certification.
The Seven Day Build is an opportunity for aviation enthusiasts, children and anyone else who may be interested to see how a conventional structure, semi-monocoque aluminium aircraft is put together in short time. Directions to and GPS co-ordinates for the build location appear under "Contact Us" link of the airplane factory website. Food, music, massages, vocal support and other contributions will be welcomed. While advice and interference with the build team will not be welcomed, builders will do their best to make the process accessible. Evenings at Tedderfield often present magnificent sunsets and sitting in a camp chair sipping a beer or glass of wine watching an aircraft come together in record time features high on the JHB entertainment of the week list.
Finally, family and friends of The Airplane Factory are welcome to attend the wrap party on Friday evening 4 March, which will commence in earnest, we hope, just after ZU-SOL flies. See invitation below. Also see our facebook page ("The Airplane Factory (Pty) Ltd")
Dear Friends, Flyers and Fabulous others
You may already know about the special project that the Airplane Factory is undertaking from 26 Feb but for the uninformed, a brief description follows:
The 5577 project is about 5 technically superior Men and 5 aesthetically pleasing Women, building a Sling in 7 days. A bit like Madiba's 46664, but with a considerably shorter period of hard labour.
Mike & James will then fly the uniquely created Sling to Poland in 7 days to deliver it to its eager new owner. Clearly a project of this nature calls for a celebration and that's where you FFF's come in. We anticipate completing the build by Fri March 4th at the latest and the party will then commence. To allay any concerns for those who are paying close attention to detail here, Mike & James will not be flying to Poland straight from the party. Given their usual impeccable upstanding behaviour at social events, this would not be a problem but after a hard week, a bit of shut eye is only fair before they begin their treacherous dual continent journey.
As if this were not a great enough challenge, they will then return in an unprecedented effort by walking from Poland to Spain and swimming across the Mediterranean to Morocco. The original plan was from Palermo to Tunisia but in light of the torrid political climate, a change of route has been necessary. From Morocco, they will fly in the more conventional manner in a commercial airliner. Plans are afoot for another party to celebrate their homecoming so watch this space. (It must be noted that if your behaviour at the first party is not at least as impeccable as Mike and James' and the ever virtuous Jean, watching this space will not be necessary).
As with all Airplane Factory parties, there is no real start and finish time but for the enthusiasts, there will be some late afternoon flying to appreciate against the backdrop of the highveld sunset. Drinks will be served for as long as they last...you flying, climbing, dancing, singing folk are a thirsty lot...and a "lang arm" to Pink's "Get the party started" won't go amiss after dark.
So there you have it. We look forward to seeing each and every one of you and to this end, please RSVP if you'll be joining us.
Excellently yours
The Airplane Factory 5577 crew
The Sling 7 day build is getting along fabulously. Photos below show the team members and the developments to late afternoon on the second day (Sunday). All bets are still on for 7 days, if not 6.
Team members are -
Men : Mike Blyth, Jean d'Assonville, James Pitman, Gareth Bosch, Vince Ntuli
Women: Nomfundo Xulu, Charmaine Blyth, Bronwyn Eyre, Cheri-Lee Matthews, Vega Ebbersten, Dudu Mathebula (6 girls because one is entitled to attend to writing articles, posting photographs etc at any one time - we're lucky to have 2 journalists included).
All of the men are employees of The Airplane Factory and have experience on the Sling. None of the women come from the factory and one look at them leaves no doubt that they were chosen at least in part for glamour. None have any experience on the Sling or any special mechanical skills of any sort for that matter. Nevertheless, excellent progress is being made and at sunset on day two (21h30, actually), both wings are complete, the rear fuselage is 90% done and the centre fuselage, under Vince's control, will be attached to the rear fuselage and the undercarriage fitted before the end of the day today, day 3.
Briefly, the daily program is up at 06.30 for a cup of coffee, start work at 07h00, work til 09h30 and have breakfast, then work until 13h30, to a 45 minute lunch break. Then it's work on until 21h30, before breaking for supper, some drinks and sleep. Right now everyone's too excited to sleep early and we're up until at least 1am, but that's sure to change. There's no question that weariness is setting in and everyone's starting to fade just a little.
Thanks to all the visitors we had yesterday, especially to Elton for the aerobatic show. Your support is much appreciated and all onlookers are welcome.
More tomorrow, at the start of day four.
One problem with building an airplane in 7 days is that there's not a whole lot of time left over to report developments to the rest of the world. Anyhow, we're now 5 days down (it's 08h30 on Thursday morning) and our baby is really beginning to look like something that may actually fly quite soon! Jean's head hasn't seen a pillow since yesterday morning, but the rest of the team awoke to find the canopy fitted, Sikoflex duly drying. That's the last element in which there's a critical time path which requires an immutable chemical process for completion. It we don't finish up now, it's just because we're too lazy or too slow!
Other than Jean, the team stopped work by 00h30 last night, so it was a reasonably early night. Then people only awoke at 07h00 this morning, an hour later than usual. One problem is that we rose to find that our compressor won't start up, so that provides an additional problem which requires resolution. Lots of those around, however. Meanwhile, the team is really pulling together - to see everyone with their heads down after supper last night, just going for it until after midnight, which Credence played in the background, was quite a sight. The girls have become instant aviation experts and while Cheri and Charmaine built the horizontal stabilizer on their own, Vega and Dudu whipped up the elevator. Bronwyn saw to it that the flaps and ailerons were 100% functional and freemoving and Nomfundo did what she does best - entertained the crowds.
The controls are now clecoed in, ready for final inspection and then riveting. Vince is working on the engine to get all hoses and wires connection before "safetying" it with a million tie-offs, fire-sleeves and so on. The empennage will get fitted during the course of the morning and then the wing in the mid-afternoon. The idea is to have her ready for a W and B by the evening, so that the engine can be run and then, assuming all is good, the final inspections can be done. Braam Hechter of the CAA is in at 06h00 each morning, and he assures us that he'll be ready to process the paperwork from then onwards tomorrow morning. It does remain to be seen whether it'll be possible to get everything ready tonight, or whether there'll be outstanding issues tomorrow morning. The outcome will determine what time ZU-SOL flies.
Absent catastrophe, the last cable ties will be tied up this evening / some time around midnight and the build will have been completed within 6 days. Every which way, there's no doubt that there'll be a hell of a party at The Airplane Factory tomorrow night, Friday 3 March 2011. Festivities commence at 17h30 with flying and a more aviation based focus. There'll be drinks and boerewors rolls. Later things will degrade into the usual Airplane Factory shindig and, assuming that the builders have not absolutely destroyed themselves with their efforts, it's hoped that that will continue into the early hours. All are welcome.
What a week - the highs and lows just didn't stop! By yesterday morning, Friday 3 March 2011, the final day, the team was beginning to get quite serious cabin fever and a strange "Big Brother" sensation was beginning to descend upon everyone. Nevertheless, all pulled their weight on the final straight (though some more in their own style than by riveting and filing). The last nacelle was screwed into place at 17h30, against a beautiful Highveld skycape, only to discover that the oil pressure indicator was reading incorrectly on the MGL Voyager. Gareth and the rest of the team's best efforts were to no avail and at about 18h20 Mike made the right decision - not to fly an aircraft that isn't 100% serviceable.
So ZU-SOL, nevertheless looking beautiful in the evening light, was pushed across the airfield down from her home of six and a half days days to the TAF hangar on the northern side of the field where her parts were fabricated only weeks before and the team and friends took the chance to unwind with some boerewors rolls and beer. Although a number of people came past to give support and see developments, and many stayed on for some social chit-chat, there was a definite disappointment that ZU-SOL had not taken to the air as planned. That, together with a tidal wave of exhaustion on the part of the build team, meant that the ensuing party didn't quite live up to some of TAF's historical 'opskops'.
Perhaps that was a good thing, though. Mike was off and in bed by 23h30 in the 'Big Brother hangar'. But, woken by his wife Charmaine at 02h00, he had a vision - that a failed ground wire was what was to blame for the problem with the oil pressure indicator. So down he came again, this time to TAF's hangar, at 02h00, to have another look. Working alone until 05h45 he eventually isolated the offending wire, got the MGL Voyager reading the pressure and started the engine for the first time. Initial excitement was soon tempered by very low oil pressure readings. Another three hours of work, however, and the reasons for this too were identified - two ground wires instead of one! At last at 09h20, exactly 6 days, 23 hours and 50 minutes after the ZU-SOL kit arrived, she was fully ready to fly. 9 minutes 45 seconds later, just 15 seconds ahead of the ultimate 168 hour (seven day) deadline, Mike took off, confident that everything was right (James and Jean having given up their entitlement to 'ching chong cha' it out to see who would do the first test flight - in deference to Mike's overnight efforts).
The plane flew absolutely flawlessly and has, in the short time since then, flown more than 2 additional hours. The build crew, deliriously excited and exhausted, witnessed the first flights and many got to fly in her in her pristine, yet unpainted state.
It's a sad moment when the time comes to disband after a great project, but TAF thanks everyone for their help and support during the project. Most especially Cathy Jones and family for their unstinting support, the Howells for their generosity with their hangar, and the camera crew Lloyd, James and Blaine for their herculean efforts.
I don't yet have the photos James Lewis and Blaine Venter took of the first flight, but I'll put them up as soon as they arrive. Meanwhile Bruce Perkins, thanks for your absolutely magnificent images of the build, people and other aircraft as posted on Avcom - they really are awesomely spectacular.
Stand by for more news and then, starting 1 April 2011, reports on ZU-SOL's trip to Europe.
The final touches are being put on ZU-SOL just 10 hours before take-off for Europe. She looks beautiful in her new paint job, has 4 25 liter additional ferry fuel tanks fitted and is just being subjected to a final inspection.
This is what things look like at 18h30. Here are a couple of shots to show you how ZU-SOL looks in her new livery. More news once we get to Lilongwe tomorrow.
What a long day, week, month (and five years!). Getting to Lilongwe today was more than just a one day flight, it was the culmination of all the hard effort leading to the flight.
The seven day Sling was successfully assembled in seven days only because of the extent of the dedicated development work, testing and then manufacturing preparation that has been invested in getting The Airplane Factory to where it now finds itself. The time available to prepare for the delivery to Europe has been woefully short, yet it all seems to have come together.
Right now we're settled into perfect lodgings in Lilongwe, Malawi, after a total of nearly 8 hours flying into a steady 5 knot headwind. The beautiful Johannesburg weather got steadily worse and worse and we ended up dodging CB's and finally flying into light rain. But ZU-SOL performed flawlessly (once we got the autopilot working properly) and now we're going to get an early night. We're both absolutely exhausted from what feels like not only a day's effort, but the weeks and months leading here too.
We're off early to Nairobi tomorrow, provided the weather play's ball, and we'll report at more length when we get there. Meanwhile here are a couple of photos to prove that we made it to Kamuzu International.
Adios
Mike and James
Another perfect day in Africa! Finally, having left the airfield at 20h30 we're settled into Cassie's place, "the Sugar Bowl" in Langata, Nairobi. We've decided to report on the day backwards, since things have definitely got better and better as the hours have passed! So here goes -
Just finished up a feast of rare roast beef, salad, baked potatoes, lots of good wine and wonderful company with hyena, warthogs and Leopards on the lawn. Here because of the great hospitality of the Kenyan friends who picked us up, unexpectedly, at Nairobi Wilson. Lucky there too, because firstly we had a puncture when we landed, and then there's no avgas in Kenya, and there hasn't been for weeks. Without some inside help we would've been bugg.....d. Anyhow, we were lifted backwards and forwards to the petrol station to fetch unleaded mogas instead and our right main wheel tube was patched in short time.
The flight was uneventful, though into a headwind the whole way. The weather got better and better as the day progressed, so the morning was really pretty stormy, especially over the ITCZ, at 10 degrees south. We dodged, swerved, flew through clouds and light rain and generally just sneaked through the sky trying to avoid trouble. Our weather advisor referred to the "blossoming CB's" in the convergence zone. Quite poetic.
We were up at 06h00, still tired and the mist cleared just before take-off at Kamuzu International, Lilongwe, just in time to let us sneak out ahead of their first commercial flight.
So that was the day. Here're some photos to give a better idea. Now to bed to prepare for the long, long day tomorrow. Headwinds of more than 12 knots will result in our falling short on fuel. So if we're doing less than 90 knots on the tracker, hold thumbs for our escape from the desert!
Adios
James and Mike
We tried to get an early start by racing to Wilson airport before the sun rose only discover that we had left our all important backup Garmin 495 behind ...
Right now we are on the apron at Khartoum International airport waiting for our "agent" by the name of Ayatollah to organize 200 litres of avgas for us. We didn't expect to arrive at such a large and busy airport and have to persuade our handlers that we really don't want Jet A1.
Before landing we decided to get dressed in our best pilot captain gear and which is a white short sleeved shirt and 3 stripes on the shoulder. What rank does that make us - Generals or what? Anyway it seems to be working because everyone is very respectful and helpful but still a bit useless!
The flight was our toughest yet - 11 hours in the air in quite bad turbulence for most of the day with headwinds and with both of us dealing with exhaustion. We spent a lot of time calculating our range taking different scenarios into account. At the end we were quite relaxed - we landed with 2 hours of fuel left.
The 2 of us are getting on well and enjoying ourselves - we have the same aim .. to travel fast to Europe without killing ourselves and to that end we are pushing ourselves hard and thinking safety quite a lot. In the cockpit we chat a bit about all sorts of things but because we are tired one of us is often trying to get a bit of shuteye. This is a standard Sling that we are flying which means that the seats cannot lie flat like in our around the world Sling which made sleeping so much easier.
Before we left my wife Charmaine packed the best food ever for us which we ate on the first 2 days - today we had food from Cassy's kitchen so we are doing well on the getting fat front. Right now however we need a cold coke and a long beer. And sitting out here on the tarmac in 42 degrees C temperature is making us grumpy.
If we get avgas we will fly to Alexandria tomorrow which should be a 10 hour flight. We will be dealing with severe desert dust and 30 knot winds gusting to 40 knots from the west ... or was it the east? Tim is our weatherman again this year ... he is saving our skins once again. The Sling against the weather is the challenge.
Yay the avgas has arrived in a 200 L drum.
Now we are in a hotel. It is 11pm and our wakeup call is at 3.30 am, As soon as our food arrives we sleep. Actually James is asleep already. He just ordered a large Sudanese room service chicken something.
I am going to shower and stuff now ...
Food is here.
Bye
James and Mike
We are now in Alexandria after landing at Borg Al Arab airport which is the local military airport. We mistakenly thought that the airport at Alexandria was closed for repairs. Luckily we are not in trouble - actually everyone is very hospitable and helpful. Now we have to mission through to get out of here early enough to cross the Mediterranian sea in daylight. The sea crossing is our scariest flight because we do not have a life raft - just a life jacket each! We are both a bit nervous of the flight today. We are waiting for our agent - Mahmoud - to collect us and take us to the airport. We will then split the duties - I will do the checking of the engine and James will do the fuel run (there is no Avgas so we have taken the 4 fuel cans out and will use them to fill up from a local fuel station)
The flight from Khartoum to Alexandria was a great experience - we took off in the pitch dark and then flew straight out across the eastern edge of the Sahara. What a great experience to be flying at night again. This time we were able to dim the Voyager for night flight and also for the first time we were able to use the little night light we fit into our Slings. Although the wind was a howling headwind at ground level, once we were up to flight level 085 the headwind had dissapeared which we needed in order to make it. Once we were in Egyptian airspace we were routed along airways which took us over Luxor and Cairo. It was pretty easy going but we did sweat a bit to make it with the fuel because of the headwind we encountered towards the end of the flight. After 10.7 hours we landed with an hour and halfs fuel left.
Oh yes - something I am not sure you want to know about - although urinating in the plane is easy because we have a "piss tube" which consists of a funnel with a tube attached to it - which we push through a hole in the floor ... but doing a number 2 is a little more complicated. For the first time yesterday one of us absolutely had to do a number 2. Without a convenient "shit tube" it required a bit of planning - a plastic bag is placed on the seat and then you take your pants off and squat. James had bits of toilet paper stuffed up his nostrils but he still moaned a lot and insisted the bag get thrown out. The greenies will have a hernia but I am here now to confess and say 10 Hail Mary's and swear never to do that again. Over!
OK, Mahmoud is here.
Bye for now. Hold thumbs.
Mike and James
Getting out of Egypt was as we expected - a bit of a nightmare. One bit of advice I can give everyone - do not fly a private aircraft into Sudan or Egypt. I am sure there are other countries in the world which are "small private aircraft unfriendly" but in my opinion those 2 countries are the worst of all ... and I have flown small aircraft through about 50 countries I guess. The overnight stop in Khartoum cost us a whopping US$ 2085.00 - that is Euro 1550.00 or R15,000.00. 200 litres of Avgas cost us US$ 1100.00. The stop in Egypt cost us US$ 1100 excluding the fuel and hotel which we paid for ourselves. The fuel incidentally was extremely cheap - 200 litres cost us about USD 50.00 ... of course that is car fuel - 90 octane stuff that the engine would prefer not to drink!
So after having our flight plan rejected about 5 times and then fighting about the costs and hiding from short rain showers we eventually took off at 11.59 am local time. Immediately we were airborne the headwind made its unwelcome presence felt. Our ground speed on average was about 85 knots while our true airspeed the whole way was in the region of 110 to 115 knots. At one time we had a 40 knot headwind! And at flight level 085 (8500 ft asl) the temperature was 2 degrees C.
After takeoff James and I chatted about our emergency drill in the event of a water landing. As the PIC on this flight James was to fly the plane, do the mayday calls, try the restarts etc. I was to activate the emergency signal on the IndigoSat tracker, activate the PLB, get the emergency survival kit ready, unlock the canopy. So that was it .. once we had all of that in our minds then there was no point in worrying any more about it otherwise you might drive yourself mad !
As we were flying past Athens, Athenia control contacted us to say that the Bulgarians would not let us fly on a VFR flight plan into their airspace. At first we asked to change to an IFR flight plan but then started talking about finding a place to land in Greece for the night. Having a look on the map we saw that we were going quite close past Mykonos and asked ATC for an overnight diversion but we were told there was a problem with customs and they suggested that we go to Mitilini on the island of Lesbos.
Right now we are sitting in a pavement café watching the Lesbo people walk by! We need a rest so we have decided to give Sofia a miss altogether - the reason is simple ... it is easier to do long distance flights than to deal with all the admin on the ground. Arranging parking, customs, immigration, pay fees, file a new flight plan, find a reasonable hotel, change money etc. Sometimes things go well but like in Sudan and Egypt it can be hell. It is a lot easier being the two of us because we split duties but still ...
So we take off tomorrow at 6.30 am local time and the flight will be about 8.5 hours because of the 20 - 25 knot headwinds but still it will be easy except ... we do pass through a hell of a lot of countries and loads of airspaces! Here is a list of the countries: Greece, Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia and Poland. We haven't gone through it all yet but we will probably do about 40 frequency changes! Fun and it is bound to keep us awake.
Bye for now
Mike and James
Yooohooo, we're in Krakow, we're alive and there's good food and beer! Even better, Krakow is absolutely beautiful, full of history and, being a university town, is full of students. If you have a Sling, it's well worth the flight!
Getting away from Mitilini proved a little more of a task than we'd planned. Once again they had no avgas on the field, so we arranged to meet Mr Kukuvayos, of the Mitilni Aero Club, to borrow some of their mogas at 14h30. Unfortunately we were still on SA time so we missed him by an hour first time round and only got to fill the plane at 10pm. Also, we had another puncture (the right tube is faulty), so that just meant more running backwards and forwards. Still, we got to meet some really good people because of it and we'd had a restful morning doing what they seem to do best in Mitilibni - sitting in pavement café's drinking frappe, chatting and playing backgammon.
Now we're in the Schengen zone life becomes a lot easier when changing countries - you just get in and fly, no customs, immigration or other formalities, so we were off quickly once at the airport yesterday morning. Still, if you plan to fly from SA to Europe don't do it at this time of the year - we've had a headwind absolutely the whole way so things slowed down once we took off. The only difference with the headwind from day to day is whether it's blowing at 15 knots, 30 or, at times yesterday, 50 knots!
Up through FYROM, Bulgaria and Romania the skies were clear and it was great to see snowy peaks coming over the horizon. Over Hungary, though, we had to start dodging clouds and things looked even thicker up ahead over Slovakia. The Tatri mountains, which separate Slovakia from Poland, are 8 500 feet high, so we climbed to 10 500 and then 11 500 to clear them and the thick clouds covering them, realizing there may be downdrafts. Still, we ended up having the only real flying challenge of the journey when the headwind picked up to 40 and then 50 knots. Our groundspeed was down to 50 knots and then, just before the highest point of the mountains, the downdrafts just starting sucking us down into the clouds. We got slurped into them like an insect sinking into milk!
Mike was PIC and flew us faultlessly through 15 minutes of total whiteout, all the while descending at full throttle. No matter what speed we flew at, we just couldn't decrease the descent rate to below about 200 feet per minute. But our MGL Voyager gave us precise ground clearance and excellent spatial perception and we used the autopilot a bit when things got really busy. Rainier's Voyager autopilot with MGL stepper motor servos did excellently, even in the turbulence. Still, trying to climb we got right down to an airspeed of 55 knots for while and I stared at our ground speed in horror as it showed between 8 and 15 knots for minutes on end. It looked like we may re-enter Slovakia backwards! Meanwhile Bratislava FIC didn't seem as confident of our or our aircraft's capabilities as we did and there were some fairly strained silences when we had to answer their question "ZU-SOL, please confirm that you are able to maintain VMC flight" in the negative. Overall, however, air traffic control was excellent throughout the flight - pleasant, helpful and convenient. Although we flew through such busy airspace over 7 countries it was hardly a challenge.
We arrived in Krakow to a great welcome from Konrad, Marek, Jurek and Michael, The Airplane Factory's prospective agents in Europe, and Polish television came to have a look. This morning we get to explore Krakow a bit more, then we fly on to Radom for 2 days before heading off to Friedrichshafen.
Thanks everyone on Avcom for all your support. I know we haven't answered questions about permissions and so on yet - there just hasn't been time. We promise to do that in the next 48 hours though. We've learnt lots and can definitely give advice to people wanting to do the trip on our return.
Adios for now - we're off to get coffee and breakfast
James and Mike
We've been in Radom for a couple of days checking out our prospective distributor (Solaris Group Aviation and Wind Sp z o.o.'s) premises and negotiating terms of distributorship (within quite a bit of food and drink in between, including what turned into a profoundly disabling vodka drinking session for me). Luckily I got in a good game of tennis with Jarek yesterday morning to purge my system while Mike trained prospective pilots with Konrad and Marek.
Later I flew to Warsaw to get Mirek Zalewski signed out in the Sling (he's an SA pilot and instructor who's currently the chief pilot in the Polish national airline) while Mike was given a guided tour of some of Radom's impressive manufacturing facilities. Mirek in turn signed out Solaris' young pilot, Michael, who also has an SA pilot's license. The local contingent managed to ding a wheel spat off the Sling while taxiing on these rough grass verges, however, and the right tyre was leaking again, so we've had a bit of work to do once again getting everything ready for Friedrichshafen.
Anyhow, now we're just about done and we're heading off to Prague in a minute, en route to Friedrichshafen. In Prague we'll be put up by Andries Botha and his wife Sandra, who is the SA ambassador there. Trying to make sure all's in order I just got Andries' sms response which reads, "Engelsman, julle kom kuier by boeremense so natuurlik ontmoet ek julle en natuurlik was ons julle klere!" So it looks like a bit of much needed home from home.
Meanwhile we received the attached picture of some of the Airplane Factory team from back at Tedderfield, which also just about brought tears to my eyes. Jean flew two more Slings over the weekend, which makes nine now airborne. What smiles to come home to and what a perspective check in this rarefied continent!
Just two short hops to go!
Cheers
James and Mike
James' laptop got busted, but they managed to get a few photos through to us of Prague and the airshow at Friedrichshafen. They will be leaving from Zurich in Switzerland today on a commercial flight and head back to South Africa via Dubai.
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