All the News that's Fit to Fly

Georgina Hunter-Jones

HELICOPTER LIFE visited the film set of Emmerdale in Yorkshire for the launch of Hields Aviation's Newscopter.

There are two Robinson R44 Newscopters in the UK. One, G-PIXX, is run by Mike Smith (the disc jockey), is based in the south of England and has been active for about eighteen months: the other, G-OTVI, is based at Sherburn-in-Elemet and had its inauguration by Sir David Jason on the film set of Emmerdale (formerly known as Emmerdale Farm) in January this year.

G-OTVI was 'christened' on January 20th by the actor Sir David Jason at the Emmerdale set, which was specially opened for the day. Sir David is himself a helicopter pilot and recently did his R44 rating with Mike Smith (the pilot).

Tim Fee, ITV Yorkshire Line Producer, and in charge of the Emmerdale site, said, "Emmerdale is a massive success story and so is Bob Hields, so I am so glad the two of them can come together here to celebrate today." He added, "the only time I don't like helicopters is when they fly over the set when we are in the middle of filming! Please ask helicopter pilots only to fly over at weekends when the set is closed."

Sir David Jason flew into the site in the Newscopter...