Over the past few days, we have had an incredible opportunity to travel around South Africa and learn more about agricultural aviation in the country.

Our trip began in the Cape region, where our African dealer (Dellair) has one of its bases. We also had the opportunity to visit the headquarters of Ag Aviation Africa (the local Air Tractor dealer). Dellair Aviation Services hosted a meeting for agricultural pilots where we had the opportunity to share a little about the Brazilian agricultural aviation industry, the history of Zanoni and the innovations we are bringing to the market this year. More than 15 pilots and 5 aerial spraying companies gathered at the Dellair hangar at Diepkloof Airfield, where Zanoni’s African dealer also provides maintenance for operators in the region. Most of them come to the Cape to spray canola and wheat during the winter and then head north for the summer season.

Later, we headed to the Transvaal region, where Dellair has its main agricultural aircraft maintenance center. There we also visited Steve Viviers, the local Agnav dealer, who is also a pilot for a large farmer and uses many Zanoni products, including our 13" gate.

The third leg of our trip was to visit some operators in the eastern part of South Africa, including Sandriver, our largest customer on the continent, which operates Air Tractors and helicopters in over 5 countries (including the USA).

We ended the South African tour by attending the Africa Aerospace & Defence Trade Exhibition with our friends at Air Tractor, where we met some agricultural pilots from other African countries (including Ethiopia and Zambia) and were able to discuss the future of agricultural aviation in Africa with some of our partners.

We cannot express our gratitude enough to Danie and Lizelle Vermeulen, who have worked hard to bring Brazilian technologies to African operators. As is the case in our country, we have not seen a single agricultural aircraft without at least one Zanoni part installed. Thank you for the warm welcome!

We also thank Ann Grahek (from our US dealer, Turbine Conversions), who traveled with us over the past few days and shared an incredible time in safaris and hangars. The three companies (Zanoni-Dellair-Turbine) are now an intercontinental group working to develop new technologies for the benefit of the global ag aviation industry.