Sunday 30th December 2001: I've just corrected a few page links on the side navigation bar of various episode guide pages. Sunday 23rd December 2001: The discussion forum was reinstated earlier this week. If you've not visited yet, please take a look and signup! I doubt I will be adding any more content until after Christmas so I would just like to wish you all a merry Christmas and a peaceful new year! Sunday 16th December 2001: Sunday 2nd December 2001: To celebrate the news, I've finished the Cotswolds episode guide - just Cornwall to do now. Saturday 1st December 2001: Sunday 25th November 2001: Monday 12th November 2001: Thursday 1st November 2001: That's the site updates out of the way, now for the real news. First of all, Jonathan Souch has left a comment on the discussion forum. Jonathan is now a director of Castle Air and was one of the helicopter engineers responsible for directing the contestants to their start positions. A couple of weeks ago I finally met Clive Harris and his wife Jenny. Clive was a contestant on the Cornwall episode of Interceptor. Clive very kindly took me for a flight over London in a Robinson R44 helicopter. It was my first ever helicopter trip and was absolutely fantastic! :o) We followed the London heli-lanes from Denham right along the Thames as far as the London Docklands. After the flight, we all went for a coffee and spent an enjoyable hour or two talking about Interceptor, Treasure Hunt and Castle Air. You couldn't hope to meet a nicer couple and my girlfriend and I had a brilliant time. Thanks Clive and Jenny. My girlfriend wrote to Michael Malric-Smith in September to see if he would meet me and show me around Castle Air. He called Lorna as soon as he received the letter and agreed!! In the first week of October I was on holiday in Cornwall and we went along to Castle Air. I was pretty nervous! We walked into the reception and someone approached the hatch - it was Keith Thompson!!! He was Anneka Rice's pilot in "Treasure Hunt". He asked us to take a seat and a few moments later Mikie opened the door. He is a really nice guy and took us through to the hangar where there were several Agusta 109's in various states of repair. Notable helicopters there were G-TELY which looks almost identical to G-MEAN, the Navy and white 109 used in the BBC's "Flying Gardener" and G-SPEY which was the comms helicopter in "Treasure Hunt". I once again saw G-ONTV which I saw earlier in the year. I had assumed it was the old "Treasure Hunt" Jetranger that they had re-registered. It turns out that it was the Jetranger that Mikie ditched in the sea a few years ago. Apparently its at the bottom of the sea near Alderney(sp?). He says if you can find it, you're welcome to it! :o) Mikie spent a while talking about each of the helicopters there. He pointed out the £250,000 camera that was being removed from the "Flying Gardener" helicopter - they had been filming a new series the day before. He gave me a tour of the cockpit of a new Agusta 109 Power they had there and then he took me through to the end room. Well guess what was there - G-MEAN!!!! Unfortunately she has seen better days. Castle Air had sold her and her new owners proceeded to land her a little too heavily. She rolled on to her side and that was that. She is now being used for spares and was already heavily stripped down when I saw her. She had been re-registered as G-USTA and her new owners had removed the yellow stripe and replaced it with a silver one. I have lots of pictures which I will on-line soon. All in all, October was quite a month! :o) Thursday 20th September 2001: Wednesday 19th September 2001: Sunday 16th September 2001: I'm going to resume development by starting work on the final episode guides. Look for them appearing soon. I've got an exciting day ahead of me on October 20th. I will be having my first ever flight in a helicopter - piloted by none other than Clive Harris, the male contestant in the Cornwall episode of Interceptor. I can't wait! Saturday 14 July 2001: Sunday 8 July 2001: Thursday 5 July 2001: Sunday 1 July 2001: In May, I had to visit Plymouth for a meeting. While I was there, I nipped in to Cornwall to pay a visit to Castle Air. I've been there several times before only to find the hangars all closed up and nothing happening. This time, I drove into the car park to find three helicopters on the apron, and most of the hangar doors wide open. There was an Agusta 109 outside, recently used by Mikie in the Flying Gardener series on BBC2. Next to it was a new Agusta 109 Power. To the side of the hangar was a repainted and re-registered Bell Jetranger - the ex-Treasure Hunt helicopter is now known as G-ONTV and is mostly white with a diagonal yellow and black stripe. Inside the hangar, I saw the Treasure Hunt comms Jetranger - G-SPEY and what appeared to be several A109's in various states of repair. I managed to get quite a few pictures which I will post at some point. Finally for now, I've just returned from Cornwall again - this time I was on holiday with my girlfriend! I have visited most of the Cornwall episode locations before, but managed to visit a few new ones this time - the shire horse centre (where the Interceptor attempted to ambush Sarah), St Enedoc church (Sarah's start position), and Daymer Bay which was visited by both Clive and Sarah at various points in the episode. I'm hoping to complete the image CD very soon, at which point I will continue to add more content to this site. Keep watching! Wednesday 11 April 2001: Sunday 8 April 2001: On Friday I will be going to the Lake District and will be staying overnight in the King George IV Inn near Eskdale Green. This was the Interceptor's lair! I can hardly wait! Sunday 25 March 2001: Sunday 18 March 2001: Wednesday 14 March 2001: Tuesday 13 March 2001: Saturday 10 March 2001: Thursday 8 March 2001: Interceptor news. Quite a bit really. I've been provided with a huge amount of new content, from magazine clippings (TVTimes, TV Guide etc), some excellent new pictures and slides, programme production notes and a copy of the proper pilot episode. All I knew before I started watching it was that it was a French pilot for Interceptor. It is actually the pilot episode featuring Jon Iles previously seen in ITV's The Bill as DC Dashwood. I'm pretty sure it is a Chatsworth pilot although you wouldn't know it apart from what appears to be Malcolm Heyworth guiding one of the contestants from the helicopter. Everything is different to final show though - the Interceptor is in a leather jumpsuit with a black helmet and a hand held zapper resembling a gun. The host was not Annabel but I'm sure I've seen her somewhere before. The contestants seemed fake somehow and I'm convinced they were an actor and actress. The pilot was not Mikie and he piloted a white helicopter. The Interceptor conducted most of his dialogue with the main camerman who he called `Marcuzzi` - surely Henry Marcuzzi who was a cameraman in the UK Interceptor episodes. The Interceptor's only other form of transport was a three wheeled trike which looked most difficult to control! Anyway the above will appear on the site at some point in the future - hopefully soon! I've also received the answers to several questions I put to the Cornish contestant, Clive Harris which I will publish in the next couple of weeks. I will shortly be adding another download - a model of G-MEAN (Agusta 109) for use in Microsoft Flight Simulator 98 or 2000. Kindly created by Andrew Tunley. Sunday 28 January 2001: Monday 22 January 2001: Behind the scene page updated with the new style as used on the communications and downloads pages. Sunday 21 January 2001: Thursday 18 January 2001: Have you seen Mikie on BBC2 the last couple of weeks? He is the pilot in a programme called Flying Gardener. Have a look this week. Its worth watching just for the aerial photography and to see what is probably the replacement for G-MEAN - a new Agusta 109. I'm not sure about the new colour scheme though - I preferred black and yellow! :) |