The Aero-Cam Slick 360 is a South African aerobatics Aircraft produced by the Aero-Cam aircraft company of Centurion, South Africa. It is designed exclusively as an aerobatic competition aircraft, to compete in events such as the Advanced World Aerobatics Championships (AWAC). It's sleek. It's slippery. It's oh so smooth. It's superb and it's all South African. It's the Aero-Cam Slick 360 designed to take on the world's best in international advanced aerobatics and it will make its world public debut at the EAA AirWeek at Wonderboom Airport, Pretoria, from April 29 to May 1.
And after all the oooing and ahhing of the exhibition is over, it will face its first major test when it takes part in the South African National Aerobatic Championships to be held in East London next month. This is where it will come under the critical eye of the country's top exponents of the art of aerobatics and where it will be judged worthy or not of representing the country at world competition level. Its makers are confident that it will woo even the most ardent pessimist, for here is an aircraft designed with passion and built with dedication by a team of men dedicated to the art of advanced aerrobatics and, more importantly, getting it right the first time.
The Slick 360 was first conceived when it became apparent during the past few Advanced World Aerobatic Championships (AWAC) that there were simply no top class aircraft being built to take over from the trusty old Pitts, Zlins and Yaks.
These wonderful old planes had served the aerobatic community for 25 years or more, and although still competitive in the hands of a highly skilled pilot, were becoming expensive to operate and maintain and deserved to be put to use in a less demanding roll. The brand new multi-million rand Sukhois, Caps and Extra’s were not allowed to be used in the Advanced Category, where pilot skill is the measure of the day rather than the thickness of the participants’ wallet.
This fact was foreseen by some designer / builders who started to produce, in limited numbers, aircraft such as the One Design, Giles series and its derivative, the Cap 222. These aircraft all obtained fantastic performance from relatively little power achieving speeds, roll rates and climb statistics that far out-performed their older rivals. Even with the performance advantage however, the pilots of these aircraft did not achieve top placing at Advanced World Aerobatic Championships (AWAC). In five AWAC events, two were won by Zlins, two by the Extra 230 and one by a Yak 55. The Yak 55 is some 30 years old, the Zlin 25 years old and the Extra, 20. Considering the Extra was a 230 horsepower aircraft (versus the Yak’s 360 and the Zlin’s 300) it had to be doing something right. The last AWAC held in Slovenia was won by a French pilot flying an Extra 230. This is interesting as he did have access to the French teams Cap222 but elected to fly the 230.
Regards,
Nidhi Jain [ MBA eComm]
Asst Project Manager [ eComm]
On Line Assistence :
Gtalk : NidhiJ.AeroSoft@gmail.com
Y! Messenger : NidhiJ.AeroSoft@yahoo.com
Rediff Bol : NidhiJ.AeroSoft@rediffmail.
No comments:
Post a Comment