Right Wing Build Underway, Big Announcement Today at Oshkosh
I received a replacement right wing rear spar earlier this week so now the wing can get built up. Perry from TAF came up with “quite the contraption” (as he called it) to ensure it made its way to NH undamaged – it’s mostly a long piece of 6″ PVC pipe. But it did the trick, as the spar arrived in perfect condition.
Sadly I had to skip Oshkosh this year, as I couldn’t take time off this week to go (I was just on vacation last week!). As much as I wanted to go, I am happy to instead be working on my Sling. When I bought the kit last year, there were only a handful of other people in the US building a Sling 4, maybe a total of 5 people. Now, especially with the release of the TSi, there are quite a few more builders and the Facebook Sling Builders group is very busy. It’s pretty exciting to be part of it; almost every day I think about starting test flights and flying out to Oshkosh to show off this beautiful plane!
One big thing I did miss tonight at Oshkosh was the announcement of a high-wing Sling TSi variant at the “Sling Ding” social event. It looks pretty nice, I’m sure it will be popular! To me, the design looks like it took some cues from the Cessna Cardinal, which I know many pilots loved for its swept back windshield/wing, lack of wing struts compared to 172s/182s, and relatively good performance for a 4-cylinder engine. I was looking at buying a used Cardinal before I decided to get the Sling 4 kit. Maybe this will be my next project!
