I was
thrilled and privileged this morning to be invited by The London Helicopter to take a flight over our beautiful city on the day that MD
Chris Mann and his welcoming team launched the UK’s first online helicopter sightseeing
service from Battersea and Redhill.
With
attractions like the London Eye and now The Shard vying to lure tourists with ever
more spectacular viewing platforms, the suggestion seems to be that the higher
up you go, the more breathtaking the experience becomes.
Well, yes
and no ….
Go too high
up over central London - as you do when you come in to land following one of Heathrow's flight
paths - and you may as well be flying over any other major city in the world,
except for the distinctive shape of the Thames snaking far below you like the
montage used for ‘Eastenders’.
But at the
lower altitude of 1,000 feet, this new service achieves the Goldilocks Factor. It’s ‘just right’ - not so high that you lose
definition of the major landmarks and not so low that you’re obscured from
putting the City layout into perspective.
It’s far more intimate and gives you a much wider scope, taking in as it
does Greenwich/Docklands to the East and Putney/Wetlands to the West.
That’s not to
belittle the fixed panoramic locations - as this service is meant to complement
what’s already on offer by providing tourists with another option to bring
London into line with the likes of New York, Las Vegas and Capetown - although I
have to confess to feeling a little smug as I flew over those people below with inferior vantage points to mine.
And it’s
not just for tourists …
Do you
think you know London? I thought I did.
I’m just about an authority on the sights when it comes to showing
overseas visitors around and would go so far as to say that I have a better
grasp of the roads and suburbs than I did of my native Brisbane. Yet I was amazed by just how close places are
in Greater London from the air - at one point I had three Premiership football
grounds in view, with the Wembley Arena and the Olympic stadium in the
distance. A glance up the river from the
Houses of Parliament and I could already see Canary Wharf looming large.
And if you’ve never been up in a helicopter, as I hadn’t until today, take comfort that it feels quite natural to take off and land in something that is essentially a familiar car cabin environment that flies. Despite having bungee’d in the past, I once had a bit of vertigo looking down from the London Eye but felt none of this in the chopper - it somehow seems to cradle you by being suspended under the power source rather than being thrust forward in a giant metal cylinder like in a plane.
Loved it - a
‘must do’ for Londoners and tourists alike.
For more
information, visit The London Helicopter website or follow them on Twitter or
Facebook.
