Maiden Flight

Over the Reading Festival (2006) this afternoon towing a banner for rock group, Iron Maiden for what was planned to be 90 minutes but we noticed a tear in the banner fabric - you can just see it in the pickup photo at the top - so to save the banner from further harm, we cut short the flight to take it home for repairs.

Apologies to a disappointed Iron Maiden but these banners are like the sails on yachts. Made of hi-tech material able to take enormous forces, just occasionally and very rarely, a seam will fail and if that happens, it's best to get them backon the ground quickly to avoid the risk of an unsightly bundle of washing behind the aircraft if a tear expands in flight.

Meanwhile, on the ground below, I can't remember seeing so many thousands of people packed into such a tight but very large space. You could see the stage from miles away!

Lynx City Tour - Be Prepared

Be prepared for the Lynx city tour at the end of August and beginning of September, with Airads pulling the Lynx towel along behind the aircraft.

Maiden Voyage

Airads will be at this month's Reading Festival displaying a special banner for the legendary rock group, Iron Maiden. Let's hope the weather is perfect for the flyby.

Today, we opened the Eastbourne Airshow with a girl to boy proposal of marriage along the seafront in front of thousands of spectators. Guess what, it worked!

First Minute Fares and Airads

First Great Western_02
Originally uploaded by DrMoores.

The firstminutefares.co.uk banner was supposed to be flying down in Devon today but awful weather turned us round near Newbury this morning, with the cloud down to six hundred feet and up as far as three thousand feet into controlled airspace.

It takes a great deal to turn us round but in the driving rain, fog and with the hills up around our ears, discretion is the better part of valour and so instead we displayed this banner over Bluewater, the QEII Bridge and M25 North. Funnily enough, one of our pilots driving to Leeds across the bridge actually saw it and wondered why it wasn't down in Devon.

The moral of the story is that if you can't fly the banner exactly where you want it, we can normally find somewhere with a guaranteed audience, like an M25 traffic jam!

First Flight Mobadoo

First Flight Mobadoo Banner_04
Originally uploaded by DrMoores.

First look at the www.mobadoo.com banner that Airads is flying along the M25 North and South on consecutive days in August during the evening rush hour.

And what's a 'Mobadoo' you might ask? Well visit www.mobadoo.com and all will be revealed!

Unseasonable August

The weather had the better of us this last weekend. I'm not sure what happened to August but the storms left a trail of destruction, which included my garden fence and sadly, the flight over the charity shield game at Cardiff. Very disappointing but the weather between us and Wales would have chewed-up a light aircraft and dropped it into Cardigan Bay.

By Sunday evening we had managed to re-schedule our local flights with partners around the country but the coming week still looks very unsettled with a second band of weather now making its way east.

This is one factor, the English summer weather, that clients should always take into account. We all know it's unpredictable and if you have a banner to fly at a certain time and date, we are bound by CAA regulations to ensure that the aircraft safety and the safety of the people watching on the ground below is paramount.

Up and coming this week, we have the Dawlish Air Festival and the start of a regular circuit of the M25, every other day for www.mobadoo.com.

The Churchill Spirit

Leading north London estate agents, Churchill Estates, has commissioned a giant "billboard" sheet banner (artwork pictured left) for a new advertising campaign starting next weekend.

It's a "rush" production challenge but as long as Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs don't sit on the package when it arrives from the States, these big ones are produced in Florida - as they sometimes do, we hope to have it flying over the Chingford area on time.

FA Community Shield at Cardiff

This weekend Airads will be flying the flag for a client over the FA Charity Shield at the Cardiff Millenium Stadium.

Formerly known as the Charity Shield, The FA Community Shield is the traditional curtain-raiser to the domestic season between the League and FA Cup Champions.

The first Charity Shield match was played in 1908 between Manchester United, reigning Football League Champions, and Queens Park Rangers, then Southern League Champions. In 1974 FA Secretary Ted Croker proposed that the Shield should be played at Wembley as a curtain-raiser to the new season between the reigning League Champions and FA Cup holders.

Jose Mourinho's Chelsea are current Shield holders after beating London rivals Arsenal 2-1 in Cardiff.

The FA Community Shield on 13 August 2006 will be played at the Millennium Stadium between Liverpool and Chelsea.

Quick Pickups

Two Pickup videos to compare with each other. The first is the Meridien Alfa Romeo car sheet banner being collected at Bembridge on the Isle of Wight for Cowes Week:



The second is of course the pickup of the Dubai Aerospace banner for the Farnborough Airshow 2006

Mishon Mackay

Over Brighton today and operating from Deanland where they had a great "fly-in" with breakfast on hand. Towing a banner for Mishon Mackay along the seafront on a sultry August morning.

Achtung Spitfire

So there I was, minding my own business, setting up a banner on the runway at Rochester, when this Spitfire appeared and started to buzz me. Good thing I had my camera to hand.

By coincidence the car in the photo below that was on show at Deanland airfield, has a Spitfire Merlin engine installed.

The noise is unmistakable and the petrol consumption, well, out of this world!

Wet Start to August

It’s the start of August and the weather, in the south-east at least, is like March.

Bad news for flights over the last two days with high winds and rain keeping us on the ground. The weather is however set to improve over the coming weekend and we have the Corona Beer sheet banner to display over Brands Hatch racetrack on Sunday afternoon and two more sheet banners to fly, one in Brighton and one over the Margate Carnival, the same day.

Remember that if bad weather stops us flying your message, then you are entitled to a full refund or the choice of a new display date.