About Sonowe Fly
Sonowe Fly is a home on the internet for South Africa's private pilots, aircraft owners, flying clubs and flight schools: a public forum, club and school pages, fly-ins, airfields with live weather, a marketplace and guides, in one place and free to join.
Why we built it
Flying in South Africa runs on WhatsApp groups, word of mouth and a few long-running forums. Clubs keep their members in group chats nobody else can find, pilots in some regions struggle to find an aircraft to fly, and people who want to learn don't know where to start. Sonowe Fly puts the community somewhere it can be found, by region and by airfield.
We're starting with the community. In time we'd like to help aircraft owners and pilots find each other for aircraft hire, but only once the legal and insurance questions are properly answered. Until then, Sonowe Fly doesn't arrange flights, take payments or vouch for any pilot, aircraft or seller: members deal with each other directly.
Who runs it
Sonowe Fly is built and run by three founders in South Africa. The site and its data are hosted in South Africa. Reach us through our contact page, or share ideas in Feedback and ideas.
How we write our guides
Our 9 guides answer what people ask most about flying in South Africa. We hold them to a few rules:
- Every figure has a source. Rules are quoted from the Civil Aviation Regulations themselves, fees from the South African Civil Aviation Authority's published schedules, and prices from the schools' and doctors' own pages. Each figure links to its numbered source.
- Each guide shows when it was published and last checked, and we update the figures and the date together.
- Where sources disagree, we say so or follow the regulation.
- We're not connected to the schools, examiners or services we name, and nobody pays to be in a guide.
Guides are general information, not advice. If you spot a mistake, tell us and we'll fix it.
How we check clubs and flight schools
Anyone can start a page for a club or school; it shows as an unofficial community until it's checked. A verified flight school, or a club that trains pilots, has shown us its Approved Training Organisation certificate, and goes back to unofficial when the certificate expires. A verified social club has passed two different checks, such as our phone call to a number the club publishes, a signed letter from its committee, or its listing with the Aero Club of South Africa.
Keeping it a good place
Every post, listing, profile and message has a Report button, and reports go straight to our team. Read our terms of use and privacy policy; you can download or delete your data from your settings at any time.