THE SOUTH AFRICAN AVIATION INDUSTRY is blessed with a number of successful light sport aircraft manufacturers, either building foreign designs under licence, or entirely new aircraft. Rainbow SkyReach is one of the more successful of these manufacturers.
Rainbow SkyReach has been producing the Cheetah, and its updated version, the BushCat, for over 19 years with over 200 now flying and many kits under construction. SkyReach is a SACAA approved aircraft manufacturing organisation and reassuringly, it meets international ATSM and CS-LSA standards.
THE GENESIS OF THE BUSHCAT
The BushCat can trace its origins back to a French design called the SkyRanger which achieved almost 1000 sales worldwide, with a number flying in South Africa.
The simplicity and strength of the basic SkyRanger design was recognised by well-known weight shift microlight supremo Mike Blyth, who founded Rainbow Aircraft at Springs airfield to develop the SkyRanger. (Mike went on to develop the fantastically successful Sling Aircraft). Under Mike Blyth, Rainbow Aircraft had developed the Safari, Echo, Safari and Cobra series of weight shift trikes, however a need for a cost effective and rugged 3-axis bush aircraft was identified in the late nineties. From the SkyRanger concept an entirely new design was created - the Cheetah. The Cheetah is no longer manufactured, but the factory still supports the model and keeps a full range of spare components on hand. SkyReach now has 35 full time employees who do all composite work, sewing and machining in-house.
This story is from the June 2022 edition of SA Flyer Magazine.
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This story is from the June 2022 edition of SA Flyer Magazine.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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