April 18, 2005

Bracklesham Bay Again

An interesting excursion along the South-coast to Bracklesham Bay yesterday to tow a promotional banner for a customer near Bognor. The BBQ detector on the front of the aircraft quickly identified a very small grass strip in the area , the home of the Bracklesham Bay Microlight Flying Club that we dropped into, run by Roger and Sue, who were busy setting-up the club's Sunday lunchtime BBQ.


Hidden between two fields, a caravan a hangar and a windsock

While Captain Bob took their excited teenage daughter Ella for a ride, I stayed on taking photos, with Bob's new digital camera, which weighs more than the aircraft!


Bob and Ella

If you're looking for Bracklesham Bay on a weekend, head towards the Isle of Wight from Bognor but wait until you smell cooking sausages, just before you run out of land. You'll be very close.

From Bracklesham, we followed the south coast at low level taking aerial photos before turning inland beyond Brighton toward Rochester to refuel. Then it was of towards another private strip near Andrewsfield in Essex to tow a wedding banner over a reception in a small village, before returning, and embarking on a photo shoot of the bigger London football grounds.


West Ham Stadium

We had hoped to sneak in towards Tower Bridge for the Marathon but the London City controller wouldn't let us along the river and with a police helicopter hovering above Docklands, we took the hint and moved-off towards Croydon and the Crystal Place ground before working our way back along the M25 toward Biggin Hill and then Rochester.

In contrast with today's pouring rain, Sping had definitely arrived on Sunday with great visibility. But that's Britain for you. One day it's Summer and then it's back to wet Winter weather again.

April 17, 2005

A Year in Photos

You can find an Internet slideshow of a year in photos of Airads banner-towing adventures and activities around the UK by following this LINK.



Broadband strongly recommended.