Banner Towing

[Deep Throat II]

Anyone here have any experience on towing banners- actually the heli type that you Longline? They seem to be pretty popular in the U.S. at outdoor events,but have never seen one in Canada.

[Rosco]

Saw one at the Calgary Stampede a few years back towing a huge (Husky Truck Stop Size) Canadian flag.

 

It was done at night with a medium. Couldn't tell who it was but it sure was impressive.

 

R

[sharkbait]

Saw a fellow towing banners along a beach in France with a Bell 47 some years ago.

We can surmise that a 40 foot banner and all is not light and so fuel / usefull load/ banner/ temp/gross weight/range/endurance/ calcs. were probably pretty involved.

He departed turned downwind and thrashed off down the beaches.

As is very obvious a banner is pretty draggy and there was a big wind plus we may recall that a 47 ain't exactly a speed demon to begin with. So we can assume that he was pulling a bit of power.

Anyhoo he completes his mission of keeping the tourists informed and turns for home. :up:

We notice that he is returning for a very, very, very long time.

As he approaches the airport at about 20 kts ground speed there is an abrupt silence due to excessive amounts of air in the fuel tanks. :shock:

Anyhoo he does the good thing and punches off the banner which flutters to earth a lot slower than the 47.

The 47 does its usual kamikazi dive towards mother earth ( illusion created by high headwind adds to the vertical profile).

To complete the skit he flares big time at the bottom - why we can't figure out - he is over a flat grass airfield - touches down on the heals of the skids bounces foreward onto the toes probably pulls a little too much aft cyclic and reduces gross weight by cutting of the tailboom.

About ten of us were watching and the commentary was hilarious.

There is probably a couple of lessons in there someplace.

Thanks for the reminder DT2 I had completely forgotten about that.

[transquebecniece]

Oh gawd. Don't turn those beautiful skies over Canada into aerial billboards like we've got here. They're over the football stadiums, the cities and the beaches here during events where there's lots of people. But they're tacky, cheesy and sure, people look up at 'em one minute and can't remember what they said the next! I can't imagine a less profitable ad campaign for any business. Well, except for one. Saw one over the beaches in Orlando and actually went to the surf shop they were advertising because you can't buy boogie boards in Denver! Just my 2¢.

[ABQ Approach]

I have seen towed banners on lines around Toronto while on vacation one summer. They were the red letter type. Looked pretty good.