An airplane built by South African teenagers has successfully landed in Egypt three weeks after it set off from Cape Town!
Cape Town, South Africa – 20 South African students are over the moon after an aircraft they assembled successfully landed in Cairo, Egypt. The customised four-seater Sling plane touched down in Egypt three weeks after it left Cape Town where the students built it.
But every great dream begins with a dreamer. Sparked by her passion to make a difference, teen pilot, author and motivational speaker Megan Werner founded U-Dream Global to inspire her peers to follow their dreams.
U-Dream Global’s Cape to Cairo Programme is an ambitious aviation outreach initiative that fosters visionary thinking, inspiring young people to pursue their dreams while promoting and supporting innovation, technology and entrepreneurship as necessary key drivers for Africa’s development and transformation. The programme creates safe real-world experiences, specifically designed to discover young people’s strengths and accelerate their growth. Through effective training, U Dream Global equipped the youth with success tools and methods, forming a solid foundation which enables them to create a powerful future.
In 2018, U-Dream Global selected twenty inexperienced teenagers from various backgrounds across South Africa and provided them with hands-on experience in engineering and building an aircraft.
Under the guidance and supervision from The Airplane Factory, U-Dream mentors and five team leaders from Denel Aviation, the teenagers built the Sling-4 aircraft in a highly controlled environment in just three weeks in June 2018.
Following final inspections and flight certifications, Megan and five other teen co-pilots obtained their pilot’s licences and then plotted and planned to fly the light aircraft from Cape Town to Cairo, visiting several African countries along the way.
“The plan was to impact the continent and uplift, empower and transform the lives of thousands of youth throughout Africa and the world by dreaming and achieving the impossible together, and to succeed beyond expectations.”
The team left Cape Town three weeks ago and landed in Namibia, Malawi, Ethiopia, Zanzibar, Tanzania and Uganda before the final touch down in Cairo during the 12,000km trip.
Werner said she was thrilled by the accomplishment.
“I’m so honoured to have made a difference around the continent at the places we’ve stopped. The purpose of the initiative is to show Africa that anything is possible if you set your mind to it.”
This is a great achievement, and they are all proud to represent this country!
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