Last week a number of my colleagues alerted me to an eerie looking blob floating above the horizon in the distance.
We have nice offices with floor-to-ceiling windows, and other than the grotty A40 running beneath me, the view out over North-West London is rather picturesque. Our view of the new Wembley Stadium and it’s over-sized arch is particularly spectacular.
Anyway, from our windows we could see this weird looking blob floating in the sky in the distance. It was changing size as it slowly moved westwards.
Within minutes quite a few people were checking it out, and no one could work out what it was. The best guess was a blimp or airship, but it was clearly not a rigid structure which discounted that theory.
We all went home that evening wondering what we had seen.
Then, over the weekend I saw it again, but this time much closer. I immediately recognised it and instantly realised what it was. I took this photo:
As you can see, a helicopter is towing a very large advertising banner. And I mean really large. Look at the size of the helicopter compared to the banner. If the helicopter is, say, 4m tall then that banner could be as big as 50m across diagonally!
I’m surprised that isn’t considered dangerous, especially with it’s effect on drag and yaw stability in a crosswind.
Aha – of course. We did think it might be an advertising banner, but couldn’t work out why is was travelling so slowly and against the wind. If it was being dragged by a plane, it would have to be flying faster and more purposefully. We didn’t think of the helicopter solution – silly us.
Glad the mystery is solved!
Ben, where do you work? That sounds like a good description of the Westec business centre on Hanger Lane gyratory! Ah, happy memories! 😛
Ahh, I’m a bit further down the road from Hanger Lane.
I work for the BBC, in one of the two shiney silver buildings at the BBC Media Village complex in Shepherds Bush.
If you (or anyone else) drives past, give us a wave!
I’m based in Faversham in Kent now – was working there for a client.
Hi Ben, Rich,
some more ” UFOs ” for you, check out the videos:
http://www.HeliAds.co.uk
Hmm it seems like your website ate my first comment (it was super long) so I guess I’ll just sum it up what I had written and say, I’m thoroughly enjoying your blog. I too am an aspiring blog writer but I’m still new to the whole thing. Do you have any points for inexperienced blog writers? I’d definitely appreciate it.
Into YouTube video embed code you can also specify parameters according to your desire like width, height or even border colors.