Hard Crew

A frenetic day on Saturday, with the Churchill Estates banner to fly over North London and a second, over Camber Sands, in the afternoon. Showing my age, I won't pretend to understand what the message on the latter: "Bang Face Hard Crew" meant, we just fly them on demand and I certainly wondered what the people on the beach below made of it all.

We used Lydd Airport for the first time in ages to operate from and they were extremely helpful. Below, there's a small YouTube video of the view back into the airport when the job was done.

Next weekend, it's Skegness for two days. Last year, the early Bank Holiday flights were 'Weathered-off' so fingers crossed to avoid disappointment this year.

I'm still amazed that nobody has contacted us over Radio One's 'Big Day' next month, outside Maidstone. With a quarter of a million ticket applications and the event only two minutes flying time away, it's a prime location for aircraft-based advertising.

Final Approach

Up above the Isle of Thanet this morning, testing out the new video camera and having a quick practise session in TG's Piper Arrow. It's a bit quicker than the sedate, banner-towing, Cessnas with a constant speed propellor and a retractable undercarriage but alot of fun once one has the measure of it; it's a bit twitchy at first.

The video, shot by Alasdair Bruce, shows Thanet from above and the approach in Manston airport's runway 28.

A Football Theme

Staying with the football theme - I flew back from Milan with England Manager Fabio Capello last week - The Sport Academy in Loughton, North London, called us at short notice, yesterday, asking us to fly a banner this afternoon, promoting their St George's Day football, 'Fun Day'.

Given that Monday's weather was dire, I didn't have any great hopes that we might be able to do it but today, by remarkable contrast, was like an early summer's day, with glorious sunshine over the south-east of England.

And so it was back to Daymns Hall, now renamed as Hornchurch airfield, to set-up and collect the banner for the 'Fun Day' which all went to plan and included a short YouTube video as well.

We must buy a new camcorder with so many customer videos now going online.

Churchill Lead the Way on Sky News

Great coverage on Sky News this morning for AIRADS client, Churchill Estates, to support the story on the expected Bank of England interest rate cut and the decline in the housing market.

We were up at Rochester yesterday, filming with news editor, Joel Hills and on a glorious spring morning Sky captured some excellent footage of the Churchill banner before we flew off to North London to display it.

At 07:30 this morning I had a call from a delighted Managing Director of Churchill's who had been watching the report on the morning news.

Scenic Disaster

The end of Margate's famous 'Roller Coaster' the 'Scenic Railway' caught by a passing Airads flight on Tuesday.

Police suspect arson and one wonders whether the damage to this historic wooden structure is too much to be repaired?

Watch the Sky

If the weather holds-up this week, Sky News is set to join us for a 'mission' over London and to film a piece on aerial advertising. It's going to take a little arrangement, having the Sky helicopter, the banner aircraft and of course a camera crew and the client, all working together out of Rochester. The latter is presently recovering from the weekend's snowfall and is closed and so we are rather hoping that it will be dry in time to avoid having to think about a "Plan B".

The banner over Everton , for the fans yesterday, Sunday, was a bit of luck, given the weather so Free Tibet's loss was arguably Everton's gain.

Free Tibet

The approaching cold front ruined another weekend's flying. It strikes me that we have had almost five weekends of strong winds with gaps of pleasantly warm Spring weather in-between.

Having gained permission to land late at Rochester this Sunday, we've reached our deadline for a decision and have heard nothing further from one client who asked if we might 'surprise' the finish of the Olympic torch ceremony with a 'FREE TIBET' banner. On a personal note, I think that the message might well have made a more peaceful impact than demonstrators lining the route of the torch relay but then it's not for us to judge such things as we simply facilitate an airborne message request for our clients.