The Sling Squawk – June 2026
7 Jun 2026
“Back when I flew the original Sling High Wing, I was impressed with the design, the handling and the overall airframe. It was a nice job overall by Sling. The same could be said for its low-wing brother, the TSi. When I flew the four-seat TSi with the Rotax 915 iS, the performance impressed—with four adults, full fuel and a density altitude of over 9,500 feet, it climbed away from the mountain runway at Big Bear Lake, California, at over 500 fpm! The turbo made the difference even as the maximum power from the 915 was fairly modest.
The High Wing was different. Perhaps because it sports more frontal area than the TSi by the nature of the wing/fuselage intersection—remember that the wing is exactly the same, just on top instead of on the bottom—the High Wing was approximately 10 knots slower than its low-wing sibling. Where the TSi felt like it had performance in more than sufficient quantity, the High Wing seemed like it would be happy with more.
Cue Rotax…”
– Paul Dye (Kitplanes)
The adventure begins! A month. A fleet of gorgeous aircraft. One unforgettable adventure across Southern Africa with Josh Flowers, Chelsea Smith, their good friends Chris Lammert and Keelyn Costello, and some of us from Sling HQ. In Part 1 of Aviation101’s four-part series, the journey starts with their arrival in South Africa at Sling HQ in the south of Johannesburg, meeting the aircraft that will become their companions, ZU-TSI and ZU-DFU, and taking the first steps — or rather, first flights — into the unknown.