Blue Flag Beaches with Airads

A reasonably pleasant afternoon over the South-east of England today. I had one job to do for Arun Council, out of Goodwood, rolling along the beaches between Bognor Regis and Worthing Pier, celebrating their Blue Flag beach status.

After a photo survey for the same council of the re-landscaped Hotham Park, I had a second and more unusual banner to do from Blackbushe Airport to Ripley in Surrey; finding a village pub at 5:30PM and flying the message overhead, "We Love Disco Dave." Whoever 'Dave' is, I hope he was suitably surprised!

Jury Team - Flies Banner with AIrads

Airads was flying a 'Jury Team' election banner all the way along the M25 from Rochester to Reading yesterday.

In the air, I could hear the rescue services looking for the reportedly missing light aircraft from Cambridge to Lydd; a helicopter and the Coastguard Cessna from Manston (pictured). I rather think that the pilot, a Swiss, I hear, may simply have gone somewhere else and forgotten the strict rules governing letting ATC know of a change of destination. I hope so anyway.

Drifting Along with Airads

An entertaining afternoon for Airads this Bank Holiday Monday, flying a banner for the Driftwood Beach Bar at Sandown on the Isle of Wight.

Having finished the flight we dropped in for lunch and without a doubt it's a delightful spot with excellent food. Highly recommended for both visiting pilots and tourists alike!

This coming week we have a major exercise for the Taxpayers Alliance, flying banners protesting the EU tax burden over London, Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds/Bradford with four aircraft involved.

Given the state of our national economy, I suspect a great many people will be sympathetic!

St George's Day

Airads will be flying a giant sheet St George's Day flag over Bradford today as part of the city council's parade and celebrations to mark the event. Over 1,000 square feet in size it should be vsible from a long way with excellent weather expected along the route of the parade.

Next week, Havering Coucil in Essex, have asked Airads to fly a banner (pictured) promoting their "Night Life Awards" and from the look of it, it should get the message across!

They Seek Him Here

I'm just back from taking photos of 'Operation Stack' and the blockade of Calais harbour. I do feel very sorry for al those caught up in the chaos this is causing, with goods vehicles queuing for miles on the M20 from about the area of Leeds castle and P&O ferries sitting in Dover, going nowhere.

On the French side, to be honest, there is very little to see, other than a scruffy collection of French fishing boats strung out a mile or so from the entrance to the harbour, with a Coastguard vessel in attendance. Not really a blockade as I would have imagined it, more of a loose picket. I very much doubt that the fictional Captain Hornblower, Nelson or even Drake would have given them much thought in the past So the blockade will stand and Dover and the M20 are at a standstill with businesses and families marooned on either side of the channel, I'm sorry 'La Manche', unless they have a Channel Tunnel fare.

Visibility was pretty dire for most of the day but better on the French side by lunchtime with a strong wind blowing. I suspect I set a new personal best with Calais to Dover in 18 minutes with the wind behind. Alright for some I know and perhaps I should be ferrying luckless families back to Dover by air in the style of the Scarlet Pimpernel?

"We seek him here, we seek him there,
Those Frenchies seek him everywhere.
Is he in heaven?—Is he in hell?
That demmed, elusive Pimpernel."

Over the Old Kent Rd

Captain Snap was busy over London's Old Kent Road this afternoon taking photographs for construction giant Volker Fitzpatrick.

Very hazy conditions made the exercise a bit of a challenge and of course, because this is inner London, we had to borrow a Seneca twin-engine aircraft from Stapleford.

On the way back, the pace of development at the 20012 London Olympics site at Stratford was also noticeable.

New Boy

It looks as if Spring has most certainly arrived today. I had to go and collect a new addition to my small fleet over towards Brighton this afternoon (the one on the left) and the late afternoon views over Kent and Sussex were stunning.

An Airads Proposal on the BBC's Pat Marsh Show

Great excitement on Thursday with some unexpected coverage on the BBC Radio Kent's 'Pat Marsh Show'.

I was busy setting up a banner for a proposal over Bluebell Hill in Kent, where Max was to proposse to girlfriend, Emma. Anyway, the phone rang and it was the BBC asking if we did 'Romantic' messages?

"Funny you should ask", I replied because I'm doing just that in fifteen minutes. "Can we find out what happened and speak to the couple afterwards", asked the BBC?

And so off I went, flew the proposal and asked Max if he would like to be on the radio. The rest is romantic history as you can hear on the video clip of the BBC programme below.

Jade's Wedding Banner

We have been up and about over the big wedding in Hertfordshire this afternoon. I did shoot some video footage from above and you can see the BBC take here.

Everything went on time and according to plan and we seem to have featured on Sky News too, which is nice!

More photos here:

An Arresting Message

Airads will be working with Channel M Television and Greater Manchester Police this month to support a new public information campaign aimed at giving greater impact to a local policing message to the population of Manchester.

This isn't the first time by any means that Airads has worked with the Police Service, the last being with Kent Police and we are always delighted to lend our support to such campaigns as a really effective means of broadcastinbg information to the population over a very wide area in a short period of time.

FastFit Flight at Milton Keynes

The return to what has become a regular fixture, this weekend, the annual 'FastFit Station Tyre Sale' at Milton Keynes.

In fact, we were very lucky to get the flights in on Saturday as the weather on the days either side was simply dreadful. We had been booked for two days but had to double up on the one as both our operating base airfields were badly flooded at Rochester and Maypole. It took two attempts on a semi-frozen grass surface to get airborne from the latter, off pass North London towards Turweston, where we flew the Milton Keynes banner from, on what became a glorious winter's day, in the short interval between two extreme Atlantic weather fronts.

The aircraft is presently back at Manston in Kent with its hard runway surface and tied-down against today's gales. If I had attempted to land at Maypole I suspect I might still be stuck in a vey large puddle on the runway.

Sinegorsk Timber Photographed

One Photo of the wood washed ashore at Ramsgate for the papers this afternoon. (photo is copyright) but I thought readers might like to see the results. The weather broke sufficiently for a flight just before sunset and so the image clarity isn't as good as I would like.

The timber, which came from the cargo ship Sinegorsk in the English Channel, began washing ashore on beaches around Ramsgate and Broadstairs following the strong southerly winds overnight.

Boxing Day Sales

I was up over the Bluewater and Lakeside shopping centres at noon today as a photo flight for one of the national newspapers. While everyone, the media included, appears to expect a record number of shoppers, I can tell you that neither one of the two shopping centres had what I would describe as an unusual amount of traffic and I did actually wonder if John Lewis was closed.

If I hadn't known it was Boxing Day, I might have thought of it as being a normal Saturday afternoon's trade!

Captain Snap over Westwood Cross

Captain Snap was flitting about just before noon today, taking photographs of the Christmas Eve activity below and particularly at the Westwood Cross shopping centre on the Isle of Thanet.

I've uploaded some of my photos which take in Westgate, Margate and Westwood Cross on to Flickr and you can find these here.

I can't admit to seeing as many people shopping as I would have expected at the peak time of the retail season but judge for yourselves!

My apologies for the quality as they are not as sharp as I would wish. The light is very poor today and the best my camera could offer for a high-speed aerial setting was ASA 500. I'm tasked with going over Bluewater for one of the daily papers on Boxing Day and so I'm hoping for rather better conditions then.