Howzit Slingers!

It’s almost a year to the day that we, in South Africa, went into the start of a long and protracted COVID-19 Lockdown, which we are still in today. For us at Sling, it has not been all doom and gloom though. We have had a fantastic year, both in terms of sales but also production and quality improvements. We have made impressive strides in these areas over the last three months in particular, so clients and supporters should start to see the difference over the next couple of months as kits and planes make their way around the world to new homes.

We do start this quarter with some very sad news to report, unfortunately. Our long-standing salesman and great friend, Kim Bell-Cross, sadly passed away in his sleep last week. Those of you who were lucky enough to have met Kim and heard his booming voice and laugh will know what a loss this is for the Sling family. Those of you with a drink nearby, please raise it and toast our friend and colleague, Kim.

Although the flight testing on the Sling 4 High Wing has been the center of our attention since December 14th, for the last couple of weeks we have been focussing on getting the second prototype ready. This one is a taildragger (because James loves taildraggers…) and as mentioned in previous letters, we will be flying it to Oshkosh over the Atlantic in the weeks building up to EAA AirVenture 2021. We have not decided yet who will get to fly her across with James, so no doubt we will get into some weird and whacky competition or show of strength to decide who the lucky adventurer will be. Do look out for news about the trip and follow their progress live from our onboard tracker as they cross the Atlantic Ocean.

Apart from the excitement of flying a High Wing to Oshkosh, the Sling Africa Tour has been planned and is going ahead in July, development of the e-Sling at the ETH University in Zurich is on track and progressing nicely, we are in the initial stages of designing and building a surveillance Sling 4 High Wing that we have been commissioned to make and we have appointed new dealers in the USA and new distributors in Chile.

Things feel really exciting at the moment and the team in SA is energised and focused on the year ahead.

Thanks for taking the time to read our news and have a relaxing holiday break over the Easter weekend!

Keep on Slinging!

Andrew Pitman
Director