With Valentine’s Day on February 14th and this year being a Leap Year, when tradition permits ladies to propose to their men on the 29th day of the month, it would seem that romance will certainly be high on the agenda.

So Ladies, if you do not seize the opportunity this year, you will have another four years to wait before you can propose to your man! Why not take his breath away and propose at a heady height of 1,500 feet above the ground – we can arrange champagne upon landing to seal the deal!

To help in celebrating your love this February we will be flying our Castles in the Air and Beaches & Bays sightseeing flights on Saturday 11 February, which will make an ideal gift to remember or a special way to start your Valentine’s Celebrations.

For something even more special, we could fly you to a venue of your choice for a romantic lunch or to a hotel for a Valentine’s Night stay! There are several lovely hotels within easy flying distance of Goodwood, and we will be pleased to hep you plan the occasion.

Call the Elite “Romance Line” on 01243 530165 to discuss your ideas – we will help you make it happen!

Now we are well in to January, and summer seems to have arrived early. With blue skies and unseasonably warm temperatures, we are looking forward to a busy season ahead.

We have already had plenty of new enquiries for private pilot’s licence training, and one new student has joined us this week for full time PPL training, with another due to start a full time course by the end of the month.

Encouragingly, we are also getting plenty of early enquiries for flights to major events such as the Goodwood Festival of Speed and the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. We have also had enquiries for the Cheltenham Festival and Royal Ascot, so it looks like there is a healthy interest in flying to corporate hospitality events this season.

With bookings also coming in for the big pleasure flying events on the Isle of Man and at Cowes, Waddington, Farnborough, and the Festival of Speed we are hopeful that this week’s blue skies are a good omen for a busy 2012.

We have just revamped and re-launched our online shop – it is now much easier to buy that special gift from the comfort of your armchair, with a helicopter flight to match your friends’ and relations’ interests – and your budget.

For the more adventurous among them, we have a range of Trial Lessons where they will be able to take the controls and fly the helicopter for themselves, from the 20 minute taster in the Robinson R22 through to a sixty minute flight in the Robinson R44 when you will be able to sit in the back of the aircraft and see your friend or relative enjoy the experience. Or for that really special someone, take a look at our Ultimate Gift Experiences!

For those more interested in the glories of the local countryside, we have a range of sightseeing flights including a fifteen minute flight to see the local beaches and coastline, a 30 minute flight to see some magnificent stately homes and castles – not forgetting the beautiful South Downs and South Coast. We also have a London sightseeing tour available, departing from Denham Aerodrome (5 minutes from the M25/M40 junction)

If your friends and relatives plan on attending the Isle of Man TT Races, the Waddington Air Show, the Goodwood Festival of Speed or the Farnborough Air Show next summer, it is now possible to buy seats on our pleasure flights operating at these events. Give a Gift Voucher as a special treat this Christmas!

If all this choice is too much, and you aren’t sure what to buy, we have now introduced Gift Vouchers in units of £25, £50, £75 and £100. These vouchers may be used towards the cost of any of our services including training and trial lessons, pleasure flights, either at Goodwood or at events elsewhere, or aircraft charter.

Take a look at our new online shop and let us solve your Christmas Shopping woes!

Inspiration for suitable Christmas presents can be hard, and we all have those difficult people to buy for! If you are looking for a gift that will be remembered for some time to come, take a look at our online shop. We have a variety of gifts available – you’re sure to find something suitable for your friends and relatives.

For the more adventurous, we have a range of Trial Lessons which will allow them to actually take control of a helicopter!

For those less active, we have several helicopter tour flights available. For some of the beautiful sights of Sussex and the South Coast take a look at our “Castles in the Air” or “Beaches and Bays” sightseeing flights. These are available from our online shop as vouchers for individual seats, but if you have a party of between 3 and 6 passengers we can offer you a bespoke flight at a discounted rate! Please call the office for details.

In addition to our Sussex flights, we have this year introduced the “Capital Tour”, enabling you to see the sights of London from a different perspective. These operate from Denham Aerodrome, which is located 5 minutes from the M40 / M25 junction, and gift vouchers for these are also available from our online shop.

If you would like something a little more tailor-made, we can work with you to devise a route to suit your particular interests – perhaps overflying a specific location of importance to you, stopping off for lunch or ending the flight with a night’s stay at a hotel? – The possibilities are endless!

And there will be more inspiration to come over the next week or two! We are adding more products and flight options to our online shop, including a series of pleasure flights that can be taken at a number of major events next year. Keep viewing our online shop for details!

You could be forgiven for thinking that we at Elite Helicopters are looking forward to a few months of hibernation now that our busy summer flying season is drawing to a close. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Firstly, this winter does not look as if it will be quiet at all. With our increased fleet of training aircraft, and growing pool of experienced instructors, all the signs are that we will be busy training, supervising self fly hire and hour-builders, and developing candidates as they approach their Commercial Pilot training programmes.

Our students and self fly hirers travel from far and wide to be with us. Goodwood is a great location to train from, being a small and friendly airfield and without too many airspace restrictions to fret about. Our current roster includes clients who come from as far afield as Winchester and Andover, London and Southampton, Woking and Guildford, Brighton and – of course – Chichester. It really is a testimony to the regard our students hold for our instructors that they are prepared to travel from across Sussex, Surrey and Hampshire to fly with us.

The winter isn’t just about training. We are already having detailed discussions with event organisers about pleasure flying at fetes, fairs and shows for next season, with firm plans in place to attend many major events next summer – details will be announced shortly. Hibernation really isn’t an option!

We are delighted to announce the arrival of the latest addition to our fleet of training aircraft at Goodwood. G-DOGI is a Robinson R22 Beta and now has joined us to support our Private and Commercial Pilot’s Licence training programmes.

The aircraft will be permanently based at Goodwood, and has been bought in to satisfy a healthy increase in demand for flight training with a diary of bookings for PPL, CPL and Type Rating training at record levels. The addition of the extra helicopter, combined with the increased number of full-time instructors we now have working with us, gives us ample capacity to satisfy all the students who are currently learning to fly with us – as well as providing the ability to meet future requirements.

With good weather and plenty of aircraft, instructors and students it looks as though we have a busy winter ahead!

(Keep watching for that BIG announcement!)

Keep watching our blog for updates (and no, this still isn’t the really exciting news!)

Elite Helicopters – your number one choice for:

Helicopter Charter | Helicopter Training | Pleasure Flights | Sightseeing Flights | Special Events | Helicopter Gifts

And no, although exciting, this is not the BIG NEWS – Keep visiting the website for updates!!!

You may have noticed some slight changes to our website, we apologise for any inconvenience that may have been caused whilst we were updating. Our website is going to constantly be tweaked, fine-tuned and added to – so make sure you bookmark us and keep visiting on a regular basis.

Have a great weekend from all at Elite Helicopters!

Elite Helicopters – your number one choice for:
Helicopter Charter | Helicopter Training | Pleasure Flights | Sightseeing Flights | Special Events | Helicopter Gifts

Goodwood Revival Weekend

This year’s Goodwood Revival is over for another season, and what a weekend it was! Over 120,000 people visited Goodwood over three days, and were treated to a spectacle of vintage car racing; authentic Spitfire air displays along with a selection of static aircraft, including a Brantley helicopter and a Flying Fortress bomber; a vintage market and period entertainment in every corner. It is always impressive to see so many of the visitors dressing in period costume ranging from wartime uniforms to 60s psychedelia.

We were pleased to play our part in bringing a number of those visitors to Goodwood by helicopter, with passengers ranging from sponsors and corporate guests to individuals who wanted to enhance their day’s entertainment by arriving in style.

Over the course of the weekend we operated a fleet of ten aircraft of various types including Agusta 109s, AS350 Squirrels, Bell 206 Jet Rangers & a Long Ranger and a Robinson R44 with a total of 167 passengers flown – a record breaking year for Elite Helicopters. Apart from a couple of minor delays caused by heavy rain showers, everything went according to plan – all of our passengers were transferred in comfort and style and, by all accounts had a great day out at the 14^th Goodwood Revival meeting!

To top off the weekend we also managed to carry out numerous other non-Revival charters. Our EC120 was busy flying a World Champion Formula 1 racing driver around, and we also transferred a polo player from one polo match to another at Cowdray so that he could play in both.

We are now nearing the end of what has been a very busy summer, but we are not quite there yet. We still have some corporate events that we are providing aircraft for and will again be providing the ground handling and administration services at the Helitech exhibition at Duxford.  Undoubtedly we will continue to be kept busy through the winter months as the Shooting Season commences as well as having several flight training students still keen to keep flying and keep learning!

Happy Flying!

Elite Helicopters – your number one choice for:
Helicopter Charter | Helicopter Training | Pleasure Flights | Sightseeing Flights | Special Events | Helicopter Gifts