The Rotax 916 iS One Year Launch Anniversary

“Aircraft are often designed around engines. Sling’s aircraft certainly are – the company founder has been the Rotax distributor in Southern Africa for more than 30 years! What a joy to have an engine developer and manufacturer produce the perfect engine for the job.

The Rotax 916 iS engine has truly transformed the Sling 4 TSi aircraft into a dream machine! To develop an aircraft for a 141 hp motor, and then to be served up 160 hp with no weight, installation or operating penalty is sublime. The Rotax 916 iS is a truly modern, highly sophisticated yet rugged, light, powerful, quiet and economical engine.

I have had the pleasure of flying the Rotax 916 iS engine both in the Sling 4 TSi and Sling 4 High Wing for more than 300 hours, both in local and long cross-country flights. The engine is smooth, predictable, powerful and reliable. It’s simple to operate and feels like the civilised end product of a long period of refinement. It has transported me to surrounding states, on family holidays, paragliding and cycling trips and more recently, in a race from Johannesburg to Cape Town against a commercial jetliner.

At all times, I’m left feeling deeply confident and comfortable. It genuinely is a pleasure to have power and fuel to spare, and speed to play with, when heavily loaded and setting out on a long trip into far and lonely places.

Despite having flown a pre-production, followed by early serial number 916 engines, I’ve not experienced a single error or failure in 300 hours of tough African flight. There is not a better, more modern, efficient and cleverly designed aircraft engine out there. That the engine appears perfectly designed as a powerplant for the Sling range of 4-seat aircraft is an almost religious stroke of luck. Long live the Rotax 916 iS!”

– James Pitman (Sling Aircraft Joint CEO)