A Hint of Summer

Summer has finally arrived, if only temporarily and Airads is busy towing a water safety banner along the south coast. Coming up next weekend, Brands Hatch again with the Corona Beer banner. Silverstone was a 'washout' for the brand in May, so let's hope the weather smiles on them this time!

Public Service Emergency Messages

In view of the catastrophic floods now covering parts of the UK, Airads has offered its services to a number of county councils to include as part of their emergency, civil contingency planning.

An aircraft with a banner message, can visibly cover wide areas with vital public service and police / rescue messages and telephone numbers; e.g, "Floodline Call 08000 nnnn."

Airads can have a message flying over an affected area in a matter of hours.

Margate Pride 2007

Supporting the Lesbian & Gay Community event and march, "Pride 2007" in the north kent coast town and resort of Margate, Airads flew a banner welcoming the visitors to the town.

While large parts of the UK were underwater, Kent remained largely free of rain this weekend, which allowed a number of large public events, such as "The War & Peace Show" and "Pride 2007", to continue uninterrupted.

Tolpuddle 2007

A delightful summer's evening finish to a day I thought wouldn't happen.

While the storm was rolling over Kent at 7am, I was wondering if I we were going to get any work done at all today but with the rain still falling, we managed to get down to Compton Abbas in time to fly a detail over Weymouth and more importantly, the annual Tolpuddle Martyrs rally in Dorset, the third year we've done this.

The rally commemorates the beginnings of the Trade Union movement but it's evolving into a major folk festival. This afternoon, sadly, it was raining and the clouds were descending, fast enough for me to cut short the flight to make sure we could get back into Compton Abbas airfield, which sits some 700 feet above the ground, surrounded by magnificent scenery.

Here's a quick video of what it looks like, the co-pilots view, filmed by Suzie.B of the banner being dropped to the side of the runway and a tight circuit back into land.

Kent Show 2007

The Kent Show this weekend, and Airads has to sit over the top of it for Goodwins powertools,, promoting their stand.

Here's a photo of the show and here's a video of pilot, James, wrestling the aircraft back into Rochester afer dropping the banner and finding the 'bump' on landing!

The Big Brother Bounce

Back from a "Bounce" of the Big Brother house again, this time arranged by the Channel 4's production company.

According the the last newswire release on the web:

'An aeroplane complete with trailing banner has flown over the Big Brother house in the latest “fake week” stunt.

Housemates on the Channel 4 reality show were sent into the garden this afternoon under the pretence the house needed “essential maintenance”. Once the 11 contestants were outside, a plane flew overhead trailing a banner reading, “There is another house”.

Big Brother swiftly ordered the housemates into the caravan'.

In fact, I only watched about five minutes of the programme yesterday evening to try and work out what it might be about but the content of the programme lost me completely.

Not knowing, until afterwards, that it was arranged as part of the programming and learning from the earlier Jade and Shilpa experience, We were careful to blindside approach the building and then 'pop-up' at the very last moment, to catch the contestants before the shutters could be dropped. To be honest, I was very surprised to see them all in the garden at once.

Looking down, I could see them jumping up and down and waving, so I obligingly waggled the aircraft wings a few times. I suppose I may get a better look at it all from the ground in the programme's highlights, this evening.

Tour de France - Le Finis

Well, that's the Tour de France and the Ramsgate powerboat races completed at the same time!

It helps that both took place within 20 miles of each other and so we were able to run across to the finish of 'Le Tour' at Canterbury and then across to Ramsgate's Royal Harbour - see video - for the celebrations there.

A very busy looking Canterbury indeed, with thousands lining the route waiting for their 30 second glimpse of the cyclists.

Le Tour de Ramsgate

The worst June in living memory kept our aircraft on the ground rather more than we would have liked but even with some awful weather conditions, we managed to achieve 80% of our missions across the country.

This weekend is the Tour de France and the Ramsgate Power Boat races and the same sponsor has us doing both. So on Sunday, weather permitting, its to Canterbury Cathedral to sit over the finish of "Le Tour" and then a quick run down to the Isle of Thanet with the same banner.

Among others, we have a wedding at Sonning in Berkshire, a birthday at Saffron Walden and next week, a "Top Secret" mission, north of London that will probably make the TV cameras.

Now all we need is a little sunshine and light winds!

Postal Strike

Another "Secret mission in uncharted space" for Airads this coming Thursday, as the postal workers union asks us to fly around the M25 motorway from Rochester with the message: "CWU SOS Save Our Postal Services."

My guess is that it's a three hour flight, depending on the wind direction, so no coffee, as there's nowhere to stop in between without having to drop the banner!

The Big Day

From the weather perspective, June 16th was a day we would rather forget.

Even though we managed to open the air show ("Margate's Big Day") on the Isle of Thanet, scrape in a marriage proposal in low cloud over Brighton pier and a birthday party over Bexley in a rainstorm, we lost the pop concert at Swansea and the Geopost "Fun Day" in Birmingham.

One expects to have reasonably decent weather in June but this year, we are apparently encountering the El Ninio effect from the Pacific, which is impacting our own summer.

July can only be better, we hope!

Welcome Kilo India

In time for the busiest weekend of the year so, far, which involves opening Thanet's "Big Day" airshow on Sunday, we can now welcome Golf-Kilo-India to the Airads 'fleet'.

More powerful and with a seven hour endurance, we expect her to keep busy this season with a first job at Singleton Park, Swansea on Saturday afternoon, followed by a marriage proposal at Brighton Pier on the way home.

England for Sale

Seen along the M25 motorway this week an advert from http://www.weblo.com/.

What does it mean? Find out more on about the campaign on their website at www.weblo.com/uk

Captain Cupid's World of Love

Three women proposed to in less than 24-hours and each of them said "Yes". I suppose it may be a new world record of sorts!

I suppose if the weather if good enough over a summer weekend, we may even be able to manage four proposals in 24-hours but we need the volunteers first.

In fact, banner proposals are now so effective, with a recorded 100% success rate in the cases that have reported back to us - just under 100 women - that we're thinking of offering a money back guarantee if it doesn't succeed.

Only thinking though!

Make My Day with Airads

Three more romantic Lemmings are keen to leap over the edge of the matrimonial cliff this weekend, with two of them at the Isle of Wight festival tomorrow, which is a coincidence but makes the travelling a little easier in terms of a single flight into Bembridge to set-up the "Will you marry me?" banners.

Good luck to Jeremy, Paul and Toks on Saturday and Sunday as they wait for the Airads aircraft to put in an appearance at a precise time and place. If we are lucky the weather window may just be enough for it to happen smoothly. Four more and I think we are up to our 100th proposal!

A curious challenge arises in the week ahead from Tuesday, over Kent and the motorways at rush hours, with three days of aerial publicity for a Canadian website Weblo.com. Weblo are apparently auctioning off England to the highest bidder and have asked for a rather "cheeky" message to be added to the banner, regarding someone called "Tony."

Now once upon a time, Airads was asked to fly a banner with "Bollocks to Blair"; the hunting ban I think and now it looks as if someone sharing the PM's first name is going to have similar treatment. I did suggest "Gordon for President" but they preferred to stay with what they have, so watch out for BBC or Meridian news reports as they will have been told about it but I'm not allowed to spoil the surprise.

In a little more orthodox messaging exercise with a big sheet banner, I'll be the first flight through Thanet's "Big Day" airshow- on Sunday 18th at 13:30 so best have your anti-aircraft guns trained at the rather slow target heading towards Palm Bay.

The good news from our point of view is that the new aircraft and addition to the "squadron", G-CEKI, passed its CAA inspection today and will be ready in time for its first job over Swansea, next weekend, oh, and another marriage proposal at Brighton on the way home.