Recent Work

70TH ANNIVERSARY BATTLE OF BRITAIN
We've contributed to 2 docs due to air in September. Shooting HD for ITV, we've completed the aerials for Sir David Jason's primetime tribute to the heroes of 1940. And, in SD, we've completed the Inside Out special for BBC South & South East, filming the iconic locations related to the Battle.

COAST
BBC Coast goes from strength to strength. In September you can see our HD work for Coast, shot over a Thames Barge race off Essex. And the clip is in our Video Gallery.

READING FESTIVAL
For BBC Music, a stills and video shoot covering all the angles.

TERRY'S IRELAND
A big HD shoot taking in a complete lap of the Emerald Isle for Terry Wogan's new primetime BBC doc about his early life.

Your aerial shoot is simply a phone call or email away.

TRACKING THE NORMANS
We've been playing our part shooting some beautiful aerial HD as part of The Normans - a major season of programmes across the BBC. Our G-PIXX spent a blissful summer's evening filming around Old Sarum and it's Norman fort in Wiltshire. Golden summer light on a still evening. On air during August.

SUMMER SPORT
We've been doing live sport for the BBC with our 4th year covering the King George VI Cup at Ascot, filming all the events in the British Gas Great Swims series around the UK and we are in action for the BUPA Great North 10K Run and it's sister event in Glasgow.

MUSIC
The new video for a relaunched UK group. When 4 became 5 again.....

Need aerial video or stills ? Just call us now.

ON AIR
Look in our Video Gallery for the 2 inserts we filmed as part of the BBC British GP coverage at Silverstone.
Also at Silverstone, for Top Gear, see our HD shots of Lewis Hamilton driving his hero's F1 car - the 1988 McLaren MP4/4 which took Ayrton Senna to the Championship. The last of the great turbo cars.

HD MASTERSHOT NOW AVAILABLE

Taking advantage of April's volcanic ash airspace closures, we were able to get into corners of Heathrow's airspace where, normally, all but commercial jet traffic is excluded.

As a result, we have HD shots of icons unobtainable elsewhere. And until the end of August, these will be available to licence at our SD Mastershot royalty-free rates.

Simply click Mastershot on the left menu, then enter 1080 in the search box to see the HD thumbnails. Register free and you can download free lo-res clips.

This just the start of Mastershot's move to HD. More material will be added throughout the year.



HD, SD gyro-stabilised aerial filming at the UK's most affordable prices. Call us now with your idea.

TOP GEAR USA
The all-American version of the BBC's top show has been filming in Blighty with a British Morgan sports car. We were delighted to assist with an American helicopter and Japanese camera!

SOCCER AID
We supplied the live and recorded HD aerial coverage for ITV's Soccer Aid tournament - England v the Rest of the World. Sunday June 6th.

THE DERBY EPSOM
For 2 days before Soccer Aid, we were live over Epsom for the BBC Sport coverage of one of the world's greatest horse races - The Derby. 8 races in 2 days for producers Sunset+Vine.

BBC FACTUAL : THE NORMANS
A documentary HD shoot showing Britain in the Middle Ages. Countryside with no roads or telephone cables - tricky !

Summer 2010 at FlyingTV - and it's all action.

Another record-breaker

With the help of our clients and some great weather, we keep breaking our own records at FlyingTV. We've just clocked our busiest April ever as we enter our 7th year in the aerial filming business.

Thank you to all our regular clients - and to all those who are discovering us for the first time.

In April we flew some 6500 miles to all corners of the UK chasing steam trains, racing cars and capturing the springtime countryside & towns with a stunning average of 5 shoots a week.

Broadcast highlights for us have included the poignant and acclaimed BBC drama Five Daughters. G-PIXX played the part of a police helicopter for the most searing moment in the 3hr story. See the video gallery for a clip.

We've also just enjoyed a wonderful day shooting at the new Silverstone GP circuit. Working for both the BBC Sport F1 team and the sponsors of the British GP, the new twists and turns should be on your tv soon.

HD, SD & stills from FlyingTV. We're ready when you are.

Wednesday 21st April 2010

With nil "ash-a-geddon" problems and great weather, we are flying and filming.

A unique situation occurred this week - airspace around Heathrow that is normally off-limits to all helicopters was made available for a few hours. We took advantage to do some HD shooting of some iconic locations. Twickenham Stadium, the All England Club at Wimbledon, Heathrow itself, Windsor Castle and others.

This is being edited and will be available for license soon through our Mastershot collection.

SIXTH YEAR WITH THE BOAT RACE
A great success on BBC 1.

"The helicopter happened as advertised with no fuss and no hassle. Good job well done" said the Engineering Manager for BBC Sport's coverage.

We provided live raceday coverage for nearly 3 hours, opening titles and insert material as the Boat Race returned to the BBC on April 4. See some highlights in our Video Gallery.


AINTREE GRAND NATIONAL
Our 3rd year - and the first for HD - working with BBC Sport and Sunset+Vine at the world's biggest steeplechase event. 15 races in 3 days - all live.


DID YOU KNOW....
......that an R44 helicopter consumes 60 litres of fuel per flying hour ? Sounds a lot, but most of our competitors use extremely thirsty, inefficient turbine engines. These can consume some 220 litres in an hour - and it's all untaxed aviation fuel.
The fuel we use is taxed like road fuel - so is deemed carbon neutral.
And the amount of fuel we use for a year's flying in 2 helicopters is less than that burnt by 20 mins of peaktime traffic on the M25.

McLaren choose FlyingTV
A highly secret project that we can now talk about. A little.
Location: Goodwood race circuit. Car: the 2011 McLaren MP4-12C. The test drivers: World Champs Jenson Button & Lewis Hamilton.
A cold, dry, bright day - some scintillating laps and some low level, high speed aerial filming in HD by FlyingTV. See Video Gallery.

BBC SPORT RELIEF
Eddie Izzard's UK marathons, David Walliams' celebrity bike relay from John O'Groats to Lands End and Christine Bleakley's cross-channel water ski attempt. All using aerials by FlyingTV.

UNIVERSITY BOAT RACE : YEAR 6
After 5 years coverage for ITV, we're back over London's River Thames for an amazing 6th year - this time live for BBC Sport on April 3.

GRAND NATIONAL IN LIVE HD
A week after the Boat Race, our crew and an HD helicopter head north for our 3rd year covering the Grand National live for BBC Sport. This will be Aintree's first HD outside broadcast and we'll be feeding our shots from 15 races to SIS Live.

MARCO'S BURNOUT
A new Marco Pierre White series for ITV1 sees the superchef let loose on some celebrity contestants. We were tasked with providing & filming the surprise element of the series final. Dodging February snow, you can see the results on-air in April.

EVEN HIGHER RESOLUTION STILLS
The speed of technology change in image-gathering never ceases to amaze. We've just upgraded our stills camera to over 18mps. Four years ago, 10 was regarded as the top.
So we can now offer all stills formats in addition to our HD & SD video cameras.

2010 : OUR SIXTH GREAT YEAR
We've now done over 2700hrs in the air - which roughly translates to some 250,000 miles of aerial filming work. Most of that has been achieved by our 2 brilliant R44 tv helicopters. And, at times, we've used other R44s, the EC120 and the AS355 for differing tasks.
And we're not averse to finding some plain 'planes for clients.
So, whatever you're looking for in aviation - call us for some solid advice.

NEW LOWER RATES
Our new ratecard kicks-in on March 1. But, because we're nice, we'll apply it to any bookings confirmed in February. The new rates are lower than 09. After 6 years of flying we've been able to get a better handle on the financials of flying - and we intend to pass those savings on to our clients.
And our Price Promise will still apply - if you can find the same service elsewhere, just show us a written quote and we will refund 110% of the difference.

Helicopter Heroes

Series 2 of this BBC documentary is filming, for the first time, in HD. And we've just started work on the project.

A call over Christmas from the production team asked us to get aerial shots of the Great North Air Ambulance over snow in North Yorkshire.

Job done - all in one day.

HD NOW!
See our all-new HD showreel at Vimeo - the easiest way to view HD on the web. We've also started a helicopter filming channel on Vimeo - and invite other aerial filming suppliers from beyond the UK to contribute a brief showreel. Eventually, this should be an invaluable resource for UK broadcasters heading round the globe.

ON AIR NOW
Monty Don's My Dream Farm for C4 runs for 6 weeks, with aerials supplied by us.


New Year Discount
Winter for us means some gin-clear days and some wonderful flying. And until Feb 28 we're not only going to hold our prices at 09 levels, but we'll offer a 10% discount for any bookings of more than 3hrs flying a day. This offer applies to hourly rates on our R44 filming helicopters only.

One call gets us going.

BBC Top Gear, now shooting only in HD, has just featured an extraordinary project. "This will solve all our problems" - so said James May about his caravan airship. Well, see the "as broadcast" movie in our video gallery that proves one thing : only a helicopter can be trusted to deliver epic shots.

We don't stop for winter. For the 5th year we covered the Welsh National jumps meeting at Chepstow live for Sunset+Vine/BBC Sport on December 28th. With a BBC drama shoot near Bristol and tasks for property developers around London, we've hardly had time for a snowball fight.

On-air BBC2 from October 27, James May's Toy Stories features some epic shots from FlyingTV. Being asked to film up close and personal with an iconic aircraft is a rare thing. The planning is immense because of the speed differential between a helicopter and, in this case, a Spitfire. Carolyn Grace, the world's only female Spitfire pilot, runs a tight operation with strict rules for her display flights. And she needs to because she's flying a 70 year old aircraft at 340mph.

We had just 30 minutes of Spit flying time to get the shots. So, a 1 hour briefing planned the movements to get the director's wishlist of shots.

Take a look at our preview on our video gallery page.

And still with James..... Top Gear returns mid-November with series 14 : the first HD series of TG. So far we've captured James' efforts in a caravan airship and Jeremy's latest escape in a car chase reminicent of The Italian Job.

We're currently shooting aerials for the new series of the F-Word and we're covering the UK round of the World Rally Championship in Wales. And we've been filming Johnny Herbert in an F1 car at Silverstone for The Gadget Show (Five).

HD or SD - the best in gyro-stabilised helicopter filming is available right now.

As we enjoyed benign weather around the Autumn Equinox, our hangar got really busy in September.

We completed a great shoot across southern England for a new series presented by Dragon Duncan Bannatyne - his first solo tv project. (above)

Our 5th fantastic year covering the Tour of Britain cycling meant a week away from base for one of our helicopters and its crew - 2500 miles around 8 stages.

A whole new project started in September - The One Show's Tellycopter which heads off with presenters Adrian Chiles & Christine Bleakley to different destinations, surprising viewers. See our Stills Gallery for some pics. We sourced and prepared the helicopter for the task and run the operation with our friends at Heli Air.

Top Gear goes HD for the next series - and we're already filming some very exciting new features with the team.

And our choice of equipment continues to grow with 3 Cineflex V12 SD & HD systems, the Cineflex V14 and either the two R44 ENG or the AS355 helicopters. A unique line-up in the UK & Europe.

We look forward to taking your call!