The BushCat is the third and latest generation of the aircraft previously known as the Cheetah. It is an aircraft which has been designed around four principles: Simplicity, ruggedness, low cost and FUN!

The original Cheetah LSA was a robust and reliable work horse. It quickly gained popularity among the South African bush flying community, and earned its reputation as a fun flying workhorse. Aerodynamic and ergonomic improvements were later made to the aircraft, as well as modifications from worldwide customer feedback, which resulted in the second generation Cheetah XLS.

Nose-wheel, tail-dragger, amphibian

Whether you fly from prepared airfields, grass strips, or water, there is a BushCat variant to suit your needs and personal choice. The BushCat nose-wheel is great for low hour pilots who wish to operate in the standard configuration or for people who will fly mostly in an out of prepared asphalt runways. If your application takes you into the rough tundra or bush, the rugged and forgiving tail-dragger will become your best friend. For operations on land and water, we have recently introduced the new BuchCat amphibian variant.

“Each BushCat variant is available as a factory built SLSA, or as a home-built ELSA kit. Home built kits require between 200 and 300 hours of assembly, requiring only standard tools and average DIY skills.”

The BushCat is a fun aircraft, which is why we are proud of our bright and unique colour schemes. The Trilaminate material covering is available in 5 colours: Black, White, Yellow, Blue and orange. We have various layout templates on offer that incorporate these fabric colours. The composite parts of the aircraft can be painted in any colour imaginable – making the exterior look of your BushCat totally customisable.

We have a diverse selection of standard instrument panels for our customers to choose from, or if they can’t find what they like, they can design their own panel. All of our panels have universal connectors meaning that they can be easily removed from the aircraft if the owner wishes to make changes to the array of instruments.

Aluminium tubular space frame

The primary structure of the aircraft is made from aluminium tubes bolted together via stainless steel brackets. The simplicity of this design reduces manufacturing cost and time, resulting in a product with a high strength per cost ratio. Furthermore, in the event of damage to the primary structure, this design philosophy allows the customer to replace only the parts which have been damaged.

Trilam skin covering

The aluminium space frame is covered with a Trilaminate composite fabric, commonly used in the sailing industry for yacht sails. It is incredibly strong and has proved itself against the elements. In addition to this, we offer all our customers the opportunity to pick from our range of five bright colours to form their own design for their aircraft covering.

Aluminium spring undercarriage

One of the biggest changes seen on the BushCat is the move from a braced undercarriage to a sprung undercarriage. The new design makes use of a solid aluminium spring gear, which proves smaller spring constant and results in softer off airport landings. The added strength of the solid aluminium construction means that the aeroplane is more forgiving to less experienced pilots operating in difficult conditions.

Hydraulic brakes

Another new feature found in all BushCat aircraft is the hydraulic disk brake system, which has been upgraded from the previous mechanical drum brake system.The new system became a necessity to aid with shorter landing performance.

Removable doors

If your mission requires the use of in flight photography or any other activity in which the doors might get in the way, it is useful to note that both doors are 100% removable.within 3 minutes.