This is where the temptations of TV stardom start to rear their ugly heads. When you get really good at this stuff, the telly people suddenly start to call you up and say things like, "Oh good evening Peter, I hope you aren't busy next Wednesday because we'd like you to come down to our studio's in London and teach Holly Valance how to fly a Helicopter!". At this point Peter then rushes off to consult his diary and luckily, he was free. You think I'm joking? (for those of us who are over the age of 25, you need to go HERE to find out who Holly Valance is. She is also a very nice person).
 

Anyhow, the plot thickens when I receive the phone call: "What are you doing next Tuesday?" says Peter. "Why?" is my immediate (and suspicious) question, I just KNOW he is going to get me into something, it's a trick question, it always is. "Well, Channel 4 have been on the phone, and you know their early morning breakfast show, RI:SE (he knows fine well I don't, I'm bloody nocturnal), well they want us to go down to London and fly our helicopters 'round the car park'. There is this person, Natasha, and she is going to call you up and give you directions of how to get there, pick me up on Tuesday morning at six". What! SIX, six IN THE MORNING!! The only time I normally see that hour is when I don't go to bed until seven! Oh well. I go to bed that night wondering what it is like flying off tarmac, I've never done that before.
 

Well the inevitable happened and Tuesday came around, six o'clock saw me picking Peter up and off we went on a 300 mile trip to London, it's a big town isn't it? After lunch we went over to the sports field and Natasha explained that Ziggy would need to shoot some footage of Peter flying the Vigor for the show the following morning.

This was also my first introduction to the rocket. Nobody knew exactly how to set the thing off so the pyromaniac in me resurfaced and I fired it off a few times to demonstrate, this would later prove to be a mistake but at the time I was oblivious. Peter meanwhile was in his element and very quickly the Vigor was up and circling the field at high speed, the patrons of the adjacent Rugby Club were treated to an impromptu display of high speed 3D flying not once but twice as Ziggy hadn't caught anything the first time round, he hadn't realised the speed of the thing. My Raptor was next, just a couple of quick hops to make sure it worked, I was fully expecting sod's law to come into the equation. A few more members of the crew, Michael and Claire were introduced to us and everything was going fine, we had all of the battery packs charged and the situation was very much under control.

Everybody knew what they were doing and the hospitality was very generous. The only hiccup seemed to be the transport. Somehow the car that was supposed to be taking us back to our hotel had gone missing and we were left to contemplate life and the universe for an hour or so whilst the ever concerned Natasha went off to shout at somebody. Our stay at the Hotel was rather uneventful and then silly o'clock in the morning came around and it was time to get up.

Introduction time, Claire Michael, Chris, Johnno, Emma, Tom, Mark, Steve and the rest of the crew were introduced to us and it was REHEARSAL TIME, guess what, it was still dark too, sunrise wasn't until six thirty. This was really the point at which we were told what was going to (supposed) to happen, and the moment I discovered that there were NO detonators for the Rocket. People were getting nervous, Mark came out and in his usual competent manner said, "Right then, we'll do this this and this, that'll happen, this is what we'll say that's what I'll do, and then he left. We decided not to tell him about the detonators, we'd leave him to improvise if it didn't go off, which everybody was sure was going to be the case. Then it was time for Peter to try the "Vectron Blackhawk" the crew were pretty impressed that he flew the thing first then read the instructions. We were pretty impressed ourselves when we later discovered that it also relies on an infra-red signal from the controller in order to fly, Peter just twiddled the sticks as usual. The Rocket thing reared it's head again and a decision had to be made. I stuck my neck out and said I would make it work. The plan was simple, I knew from experience that I could start the rocket motor if I melted the wire in the motor. All you need for that trick is enough current, this folks is where you are grateful that you decided to get the 480Ah car battery and bring it along. One of the electricians was rooted out and a suitable length of wire was procured, along with a couple of decent croc clips. The plan? simple, I hide behind the table and Mark does the countdown with the rocket launcher that is actually supplied with the rocket, when he presses the button, that is my signal to create a massive short in the actual thing, and cross my fingers. If this didn't work, he was going to be on his own and I was going to stay hidden behind the table, I mentally gave it a 50/50 chance. It actually worked.  Now came my downfall. Because I had volunteered to detonate the rocket from behind the table, I now found myself stuck there with the battery needed to start my Raptor for it's trip up and down the car park, and nobody had told Johnno or Chris that I would be exiting stage right clutching a 12volt car battery! On Prime Time TV. Never mind, you live and learn. Raptor duly started and Peter was off, up and down the car park closely followed by Johnno with the SteadyCam. Peter was quite enjoying himself flying up and down, everybody came out to watch so he had quite an audience. I think this was it, it was something so different that everybody came out to see.

An hour went by and it was time to do the whole thing over again. This was really going to be the "and how long does it take to learn how to fly one of these?" quiz time but Holly had different ideas, she had decided that she wanted to try to fly the Blackhawk. And why not? Right Peter this is the plan, go out there and teach Miss Valance how to fly the Blackhawk, you have five minutes. We all knew of course that it was not possible but we all thank you Miss Valance for trying anyway as the real reason we were there was to promote our sport of Helicopter flying and anybody who assists us, naturally receives our thanks.

Thanks also go to everybody else concerned with the production of the program for inviting us down and letting us play with our "toys" on prime time telly! It is a reciprocal arrangement I think and though RI:SE tv had some decent footage of something entertaining for the viewers, there was an opportunity for some of the viewers at least to see if they too would like to "have a go".