Saturday, July 11, 2015

Aerial banner towing

Went down to the Greenland New Hampshire Ultralight fly-in today but despite the perfect weather it was slim pickings as not a lot of planes showed up. They must have all gone elsewhere.
The view from the top of the hill
A single seat Sky Raider home built
A Tiger Cub home built
A Maxair Drifter
There was a fellow running a banner towing operation out of the field
Here he is picking up one of the banners. The banner is connected to a long line which in turn is connected to a loop suspended between two poles. As soon as he takes off he drops a grappling hook with which he snags the loop and initiates a steep climb as the banner set ahead of the loop curls up from the ground. Not something you see every day. http://youtu.be/xO37V6SeoH4

And here is the drop sequence.... https://youtu.be/7Lq8sFqV7CE


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2 comments:

  1. Harry FlashmanJuly 12, 2015 at 12:46 PM

    I watched an old science fiction movie "It came from Outer Space" on late night tv the other evening. The show was filmed in 1953. There were some scenes on a small dirt air strip. You wouldn't have believed the classic aircraft just sitting around the runway. I was amazed.

    When I was still flying, I would go out and just drop in on some small field I'd never been to before. Sometimes they had little cafes, sometimes just a coffee pot and a coke machine. But I met some of the most interesting people in the world there. In those days, there were still a lot of old world war 2 vets around. The old aviators would hang out around the air field for something to do. I met guys who flew B-24's, B-17s, TBF's, F4F, F4U, P-51, P47 and once even a guy who flew the P-40 over the Pacific. I guess they are all gone now.

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    1. Mike SilviusJuly 12, 2015 at 1:03 PM

      Hey Harry, around here we still have some of those old fields but many are being taken over by developers to put in housing developments. I learned to fly a just such a place. http://www.airnav.com/airport/08b
      It is still there today but it has changed hands and is now privately owned and part of it was sold off and houses were put on it. But those old small fields are the best. As I learned to fly in the mid 80s I was fortunate to catch the tail end of the "old geezers" from WW2. Not many of them around any more and certainly not flying, though I never was fortunate enough to fly any big military iron like you did. I did all my flying on my own dime so it was only what I could afford.

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