I arrived just before 7 with clear sky, already warming with quite significant ground haze, which cleared quickly later.
There was a fairly stiff variable Westerly breeze, which persisted throughout the day. This made for some interesting take-offs and landings.
The folks that had camped overnight, either in their own caravans/trailers/tents or those available for hire, started surfacing slowly, making use of the superb ablution facilities set up for the campers.
Some folks also had tents close to their aircraft.
There was a quiz-night on Friday evening and no doubt a long night of socialising!
Tent camp with facilities and tents with aircraft.
Local aircraft moving to parking area and an arrival joining overhead.
Food and drink vendors setting up for the breakfast demand and the dining tent behind the re-fueling area. Provisions and a space was made to enjoy them. Public parking was set out behind the food vendors.
Aviation vendors had their goods and services on show.
Some of the aviation-related vendors.
After making an initial tour of the aircraft already in the parking areas, the various vendor gazebos, food stalls and the large dining tent, I had my coffee and breakfast while more aircraft arrived or locally hangered ones came and joined the very full aircraft parking area.
Various types of aircraft were present, ranging from trikes, auto-gyros, kit builds, type-certified to warbirds and replicas. Some owners entered their aircraft for judging in various categories. The results are added to the bottom of this report.
Some of the aircraft types present.
EAA 973 Krugersdorp area in front of Hangar E10, where the presentations were held, had some displays set up.
Kevin Hopper's Orion Cub generated a lot of interest and discussion, in preparation for his talk and factory tour later.
Sling Cleco challenge attracted mainly the young men, although some of the older guys were also up for the challenge.
EAA event registration table and membership sign-ups.
Flying & Fishing in Alaska - Rob Jeffreys with Jon Kotwiki on live zoom from Alaska. Jon runs the The Pilot Lodge at Big lake in Alaska, and gave an overview of their offerings. Packages can be arranged the week before and/or the week after Oshkosh to optimise long distance travel and can include different mixes of fishing and flying - floats and beach landings.
The Alaskan landscapes - rivers, lakes, mountains and glaciers are breathtakingly beautiful in the slides shown, but have to be experienced in person to appreciate fully.
There are various accommodation options available, including cabins, hotels and converted airliners - DC-6, DC-9, 727. The airliners were transported by road and necessitated closing of Alaska's only highway while the movement took place.
The regulatory requirements for use of the highway were minimal and regular stops were scheduled to allow traffic build-up to flow.
The most stringent compliance is the nature conservation requirements for fishing, which change as the stocks of fish vary over time. Otherwise things are relatively relaxed in Alaska.
Depending on aviation licenses held, conversions to ski, float and wheel-types can be arranged.
Rob Jeffreys introducing his company and the collaboration with Jon Kotwiki.
Greg Blythe delivered a presentation entitled "The Other Side of Sling". This deviated from the often shown fun and adventurous activities that Sling and their customers get up to and delved into the serious engineering activities that are continuously happening behind the scenes.
Sling currently has 20+ Engineers, with about 18 more due to be hired in the next 4 months.
Amongst many other projects and optimisation of factory processes, they are working on a geared turbine engine, which, although very costly, would form a basis for turbine training requirements.
They are also working on the Sling Twin, announced at Oshkosh, which would have two Rotax 916's and be a 4-6 seater, but he would not be drawn on any further details.
Sling are planning an additional 5 000 square metre factory space at Tedderfield and this would later expand to 20 000 square metres with the plan being to consolidate all manufacturing activities on the one site.
Greg starting his presentation. He gave away Sling T-Shirts to members of the audience who participated.
When good pilots make Bad Decisions: presented by Megan Stevenson.
Megan gave an excellent talk encompassing the physiological aspects of human development and explaining the various parts of the brain and their functions and characteristics, leading into various decision models, formally trained in the commercial aviation space, but important to incorporate into General Aviation to ensure that the 32 Human Factors that play roles in decision-making under pressure do not allow situations to generate into panic and thus bad decisions resulting in dangerous incidents.
The phases of "maturity" that pilots go through were discussed and explained, emphasising that experience building is vital to add to theoretical knowledge.
Megan during her presentation, dealing with decision making models.
Orion Cub Presentation and Factory Tour - Kevin Hopper.
Kevin begins his presentation.
Kevin stated and illustrated with a slide that there is a huge bearing on a shaft at the end of the runway at Krugersdorp, because everything revolves around Krugersdorp!
He gave a brief history of how the Orion Cub was designed and constructed.
As far as possible, components are made in-house to ensure exact design, specifications and delivery schedules are complied with.The message that came through repeatedly was that simplicity is the key to being able to put together a quality end product.
Originally all drawings were done on the drawing board but volume was unmanageable, but now SOLIDWORKS is used to produce not only drawings, but complex analysis of dynamic aspects of component and assembly performance.
The actual tested performance is very close to the design performance and even weights of finished assemblies are very close to design values.
A huge amount of up-front effort was put into making accurate jigs for all assemblies, starting with the fuselage. The jig had to be made to be partially disassembled in order to remove the completed fuselage and then re-assembled in perfect alignment, done with lasers, for the next fuselage to be built.
Likewise there is a jig for building wings and the two halves are built on the same jig, taking about 5 working days to build each wing. Dimpling is extensively used, not for any aerodynamic gain, but to ensure perfect alignment and strength, where the rivets hold the dimpled parts together and the strength comes mainly from the matching parts being held together and not the rivet itself.
There is so much interesting detail in the choice of materials, how they are formed and cut to fit that this description only scratches the surface of.
Certain limited and specialised parts are outsourced, but only to reliable suppliers, where doing these in-house would require excessive investment in tooling and specialised skills. Examples of these are the windshield, blow-moulded fuel and header tanks and the aluminium extrusions, where these are made exclusively for the Orion Cub to very exacting designs and specifications.
They have built and sold 28 Orion Cubs in 3 years and many of these have gone to Australia. Having been at Oshkosh and done extremely well in STOL competition this year, it is hoped that the American market will produce demand.
The Orion Cub can be powered Rotax or Lycoming engines, with there being small design differences, such as length of fuselage and flap design to prevent flutter.
Stall speed under power is 17 mph and unpowered 27 mph and handling is very docile and predictable.
Two Orion Cubs were outside the hangar/factory, only requiring very few final finishing touches and certification paperwork before delivery. The livery on these aircraft is beautiful and done with cut stick-on vinyl.
Kevin showing various processes in the factory.
The Orion factory tour was so engrossing that I missed the Magni-Gyro and Sling Formation displays. Fortunately the displays and lighting were similar to last week's AAD displays, and were covered well in Pilots Post.
Henley Air had their Bell 222 available for flips for those wanting that experience, here landing in a safe designated area for a hot change of pax.
Keith Fryer of AirBoss SA managed the displays and the continuity made for little waiting time between displays, which held crowd interest.
Juba Joubert put the Lama through it's paces and showed his mastery of handing this machine.
Juba "wearing" the Lama.
The Classic Flying Collection Chipmunks two-ship, based at Springs, gave a superb display in the late afternoon light. Formations were very tight and accurate, considering the variable cross-wind on these relatively slow flying and low-powered aircraft.
Grant Timms and Duncan Ritchie Chimunk formation.
The two-ship Navion display of Aircraft Incorporated, with smoke systems going, was spectacular in the late afternoon light.
Reyno Coetzer and Mike George closing off the displays in smokey fashion.
EAA 973 Krugersdorp made a great hit with their first presentation of Fun 'n Sun 2026 and drew good interest from that aviation community and local public. Well done on presenting a safe and enjoyable event. We look forward to the 2027 edition!!!
2026 Sun 'n Fun Awards
JJ LE GRANGE for 1st Place STOL Competition Ultralight Division in a Thunderbird
Matt Human for 2nd Place STOL Competition Ultralight Division in a Bathawk
Sean Cronin for 3rd Place STOL Competition Ultralight Division in a Bathawk
Dale de Klerk for 1st Place STOL Competition in an Orion Cub
Keaton Perkins for 2nd Place STOL Competition in a Orion Cub
Paul Ferraris & Grenville Mills for 1st Place SAPFA Air Navigation Rally in a Socata Rallye
Rob Jonkers & Johan van Schalkwyk for 2nd Place SAPFA Air Navigation Rally in a C-182
Sally Fleck & Benjamin for Special Mention SAPFA Air Navigation Rally in a RV-6
Lesley & Clint du Toit for 2nd Longest Distance Flown Underberg KFA Safari
Scott Williams for 2nd Longest Distance Flown Underberg KFA Bearhawk
Riaan Denner for best Local Factory Built Aircraft ZU DFU.
Mike Puzey for Best Restoration C150 ZS PVY.
Pierre Dippenaar for Best Production Built NTCA Aircraft RV10 ZU NOL.
Bjorn Buchner for Best Vintage Aircraft Aeronca Champ ZS BBS.
Derek Frasca Sun 'n Fun 2026 Grand Champion Aircraft Radial Rocket ZU IJP
Cliff Lotter Best Warbird Aircraft Auster Mk5 ZS VUG.
Martin du Preez Best Microlight Aircraft QuikR ZU KWK.
Clint & Lesley du Toit Best Rag & Tube Aircraft KFA Safari ZU LNJ.
Some comments on Social Media
Thank you to everyone who helped in organizing this absolutely superb event, enjoyed it from beginning right to the very end! Sadly the airfield is empty in what seems to have happend in a blink of an eye. I sincerly hope that this weekend was the start of many more to come as it will most definately become one of the favorite attractions penciled in on my calendar without a doubt! Thank you once again to all. Werner Pienaar
Hi EAA, thank you for an amazing weekend! What an awesome turn out! The Spirit of Aviation was in the air. Terch
Thank you Neil and team for an amazing time. Until next year safe skies everyone. Lesley
Good day All. Thank you ALL for one amazing time at the Krugersdorp Airfield. It was good to meet old friends and sharing many experiences. Fly safe and keep on walking tall. Greetings Braam.
Radial Rocket Flying at Jack Taylor Airfield 2025 575
