Dr Guy Leitch is a veteran aviation writer, publisher and commercial pilot with more than thirty years in the industry. He is the founder of SA Flyer and FlightComand serves as IDA’s editorial co-founder, leading coverage of airline strategy, safety & regulation, and African aviation development.
A hard look at the economics of low-cost carriage across the continent: airport cost structures, fuel taxation, route density, and the regulatory reforms that could actually move the needle for sustainable LCC operations in African markets.
In conversation with the Director of Civil Aviation on what the regulator is prioritising this year: ramp inspections, operator oversight reform, and what the new safety management framework means for commercial operators.
Cross-referencing the SACAA preliminary with radar data, METARs at the time of the accident, and the operator’s dispatch logs, we piece together a picture of pressure, weather, and a gap in terrain-awareness training the official narrative glosses over.
It’s not about nostalgia. Tailwheel time rebuilds rudder discipline, reteaches you to fly the aeroplane all the way to the chocks, and exposes energy-management habits that nosewheel training quietly hides from most of us.