OK I know, this thread will get locked, but I thought it interesting enough to post with or without replies. This involves a local guy (to me). Apparently he lives in the parish of Chaigley. Knowing the area, because I live in Chipping, my guess is he may live here because why else would there be a windsock in his grounds? If so, then his house is only 3 miles or so from the village...

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.8737374,-2.5123359,521m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en-GB

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.8740735,-2.5114675,3a,15y,192.75h,92.33t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s9trgLptpPKPyPMXFemzPOw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en-GB

Drops in with his Hughes 369 to pick up a sarnie from my local shop! Perhaps he was maintaining currency or was on an engine health check flight or some such thing? Or getting lunch whilst travelling to or from a business meeting?

Chipping Farm shop.

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/police-investigating-helicopter-trip-pick-19980758

No mention is made of the cyclists who regularly come here to exercise from who knows how many miles away...and who help keep the shop going, but when one fortunate guy in a flying toy turns up and the farm shop posts up on social media (which would have been great for business), followed by a "local man who apparently tracked the flight on flightradar24 from Salford, who doesn't wish to be identified (wonder why?)"  then the media get involved.

Note the social distancing... and the rather large 5 bladed fan blowing fresh air all around.. (the chopper wasn't shut down).

That is a rather magnificent Estate! Wow. No wonder he can afford to own and fly that Hughes... 

Pah! Helicopter envy, it’s everywhere! 😊

I live in the countryside, the guy down the road has an EC130 for, y’know, nipping off to the Bay of Islands on a Saturday arvo for some dolphin spotting or whatever.

Forty five minutes plays three hours by road, he’d be back from the fishing trip sipping a martini before you were halfway there in your Ford Fiesta.   

But there’s all sorts of first-world problems attached to being a helicopter playboy. He has a Resource Consent which restricts direction of approach and overfly height. When there’s a westerly he is snookered and has to do what is known as a “Towering Climb”. It’s a particularly dangerous manoeuvre, as it puts you out of ground effect with no forward velocity. Chopper pilots avoid getting in the shaded area as it will probably kill you if there is an engine issue:

 I’ve never seen anyone else do it, I guess living dangerously is part of being able to afford “convenient transport”.

Whenever I see a discussion about flying cars and hovertaxis, I do wonder where they might actually be used without annoying the neighbours…

 

I do not know for sure, but the property does seem to be the likely suspect, especially given that the pilot is from that area. Unfortunately I have never seen the helicopter there, nor have I heard it often enough to notice it (I did hear it when he visited the shop!).

My wife came up with an interesting suggestion: Given the unfortunate regularity which we (rural locality) see the North West Air Ambulance during a year, the windsock would be useful for them, as would another decent field to set down in. 

One of my ex wife's work colleagues, must be a decade ago now, visited a country pub. Some rich moron turned up in a helicopter, landed in a field next to the car park and sprayed the cars with gravel. Then nipped into the pub for a pint.

Her husband complained to the guy and asked him why he would do such a thing and he said... "because I can".

At the time I was of the opinion that landing a helicopter in such a place, where other people's property and health would be at risk, would be against the regulations. I was told it wasn't which surprised me.

On 3/7/2021 at 10:09 AM, HighBypass said:

OK I know, this thread will get locked, but I thought it interesting enough to post with or without replies. 

Why did you assume your topic would get locked? I don’t see anything that would suggest a lock.

Btw, I don’t understand what the big deal about the guy flying a helicopter to the place was? If I had a chopper and was legally able to fly it to the store/mall or whatever and land, do my business and fly home, I’d probably do the same thing. It would beat sitting in traffic, plus you keep your hours up.

13 hours ago, cmpbellsjc said:

Why did you assume your topic would get locked? I don’t see anything that would suggest a lock.

Because the story is connected to the current COVID restrictions over here, hence my opening sentence. Thanks for the questions. 

As the UK is in lockdown we are only supposed to visit essential shops in our local area where possible. Food shopping is essential!

On discussing the incident with my neighbours, none of us can understand the big deal either. Upon reviewing the comments left after the various news articles covering the flight, plenty of other people think it's a waste of police time and not really that newsworthy.

As I mentioned I think this blew up due to "haters gonna hate" - chopper jealousy. Our village is quite small and not much goes on, day to day..

In fact in the early hours of Monday morning between 0:30 and 01:00 the police helicopter was buzzing around the area in a search pattern. I went outside to get a better look, as did a neighbour because it woke him up. We were joking that no one told him the farm shop was closed! 

@HighBypass 

Yeah, I forgot about that. 

 @Dave Morgan

Let’s stay away from that discussion.

1 hour ago, cmpbellsjc said:

@HighBypass 

Yeah, I forgot about that. 

 @Dave Morgan

Let’s stay away from that discussion.

Can I take it from this that the disappearance of two posts was not caused by a hardware fault at my end?

Probably Dave..