Click here for our one day Normandy D Day Tour

WHAT OUR VISITORS SAY...

‘This was my third and most meaningful trip to Normandy. Seeing it by air really put things in perspective for me. You are a great guide and delightful people to spend the day with.’ ......

Visitor from San Antonio, Texas.

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* LOOK BEFORE YOU BOOK *

Summer 2008

The Pointe du Hoc and Mulberry Harbour are only 2 hours from London with our Normandy D Day Air/Land Tour

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TRAVEL TIPS FOR AMERICANS AND CANADIANS

The Mayfair Dove at her home airfield, Biggin Hill, Kent.

ONE EASY WAY TO PAY LESS

A lady perusing our website, exclaimed, ' It looks wonderful but definitely expensive.'

Although taking a private ride in a small commercial aircraft is not cheap, we do our best to operate at prices any reasonably comfortable family can afford. How do we manage this? We charge only the actual cost of your tour - when you tour with us you're not paying Central London prices for a British holiday.

Private tours are the best way to travel. You can start when you want, see whatever you wish, travel as a family group or tour with friends, and have somebody extremely knowledgeable guiding your days. In Great Britain all properly qualified guides belong to the Institute of Tourist Guiding. Private guides are not cheap but will amaze you with their detailed knowledge.

Less than hour after take off - approaching the Orne River Bridge and the Pegasus Bridge.

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MAY WE SUGGEST AN EASY WAY TO MAKE THOSE DOLLARS GO FURTHER

Overseas visitors arriving in London normally book private tours at their hotel front desk. Consequently almost every hotel guest pays double the real cost of their private tour. This is because the hotel front desk and the tour company split fifty per cent of the brochure price between themselves, leaving the balance to cover the guide's expenses and time. Guides who drive their own cars are told they must cover the cost of petrol through tips - not so easy at $ 10 a gallon. Meals, museum and gallery tickets, also parking are charged as extras by the tour companies.

In fairness, the hotel front desk acts as sales force on behalf of the tour companies, thus deserves reward. They also have enviable, up-to-date knowledge of places to see, where to eat, and the best shows.

You do not always need a guided tour. You will find that the staff at places such as Saint Paul's Cathedral and the Tower of London have a vast knowledge which they are happy to share with overseas visitors. Don't be shy, ask questions.

London's busses and tubes are frequent and cheap with special deals for tourists. When the weather is fine the best way to see London is by cruising down the Thames on one of the many pleasure boats. Again, not expensive, and fun for the whole family. Londoners tend to walk everywhere in the West End and City - some of the grandest views can only be reached on foot, such as those of Buckingham Palace and the Horseguards Parade from the bridge over the lake in Saint James's Park.

OMAHA BEACH

The main cost of our tours is the flying - our aerial tour brings the D Day beaches into sharp perspective thereby significantly enhancing the ground tour. The same logic applies to all our tours.

We try to keep prices stable. Only dramatic alterations to the rate of exchange for the Euro and steep rises in fuel prices impact on our tour costs. We quote in pounds sterling and once you make a firm booking, short of an international crisis, we hold that quoted price.

Our track record on this front is good, we've managed to keep our tour prices steady for the last three years. Families book months in advance because they know the price quoted for a tour is unlikely to change.

Booking with us will save you hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars, compared with the prices charged by operators who attempt to copy our tours. Occasionally we still see people taking a copy tour for a thousand dollars more than we charge - same places, same planes, same pilots - but escorts rather than military veterans as guides. You can't teach experience.

For once the best actually costs less.

The white cliffs of Dover - as Julius Caesar first saw them but Napoleon and Hitler never did, not even as tourists - we also take small groups by sea and road with a very comfortable private bus. When the weather is good you can sit on deck for the whole sea crossing.

We sail from Portsmouth or Dover - if from the latter we suggest two overnight stays in France, allowing time for visits to the battlefields of Agincourt and Crecy.

Portsmouth is home for the Royal Navy and HMS Victory, Nelson's flagship at Trafalgar.

A ferry wake leading back towards Dover Castle on its chalk down. For more white cliffs pictures see the website of Dover, New York, which gained its name from a bluff that looks remarkably like the cliffs on the left.

We can extend your day tour of Normandy with an overnight stay at a very reasonable price. We can take you over to Normandy by ferry and road - this requires at least one overnight.

HOP OVER TO NORMANDY WITH BRITISH SKY TOURS

Our Normandy air tour brings the D Day landing grounds and beaches within a day trip from hotels in Central London. That's the second money saving advice - there's a lot of life going on beyond Central London.

Previously tours to Normandy required at least 3 to 4 days. Many families fly over to Normandy and the Channel Islands by private plane; what sets apart British Sky Tours is the spectacular aerial tour and the deeper understanding this gives our visitors. Apart from you enjoying a good holiday, our tandem purpose at British Sky Tours is to make travel and history fun, thereby helping all generations though especially the young to understand the past, how sometimes humanity's fate hangs in the balance. And how nothing is impossible - no matter how fearsome the odds - when good friends stick together.

A glance at a recent article by Adrian Hill gives the flavour of that special relationship between the United States of America and the British Commonwealth.

TOUR PRICES ON THE INTERNET

Times are changing. More and more, nowadays, private tours are booked over the Internet long before arrival at any hotel in London.

Overseas visitors who book with London private tour operators via the Internet are charged the full brochure price. There is no saving for the visitor through booking on the Internet because the tour operator simply keeps the whole fifty per cent of the brochure price that otherwise goes to the front desk.

Many guides who belong to the Institute of Tourist Guiding work independently and take bookings over the Internet.

We never sell our tours across hotel front desks. We talk direct with you the client. Our tours are priced on the actual costs; aircraft, cars, guides and so forth. There is no ' across the desk ' price, thus you won't pay hidden percentages. There are no extras, no taxes, no tips. We buy you lunch, we pay for tickets at museums.

That's why we can take a group of four people on a day sky tour of Normandy for the same price as a tour operator charges when flying across two people with effectively, an escort rather than an experienced sky guide, sometimes only the pilot.

CHECK THOSE CREDENTIALS

You may see the term ' military expert ' used by tour operators. This term is a compliment when volunteered by the heavyweight media about an academic writer but otherwise treat with scepticism. Such guides often have no military experience let alone any exposure to combat. There are several excellent tour companies whose guides really are retired from the Armed Forces.

Some tour operators also claim to have ' trained ' their guides for aerial tours. To bring some perspective all involved with British Sky Tours were trained by the Armed Forces of Britain and the United States. We all spent many years putting our training into practise, sometimes under lively circumstances. Our pilots trained jumbo jet captains for British Airways.

Our backgrounds are given at our Air Adviser, our Guides, our Team. How we drew from our combined experience and created British Sky Tours is described at the Sky Tours Story which gives our credentials for taking you and your children flight-seeing and touring.

Our approach and sample prices are found at the Easy Sky Guide and Easy Aircraft Guide with links to sample tour schedules. We believe you must demand only the highest levels of competence before offering tours where a famous place or event first is explained from the air before exploring on the ground.

We know from all the people who have taken our Normandy D Day tour that it's a special trip, for many the trip of a lifetime, often to celebrate a treasured anniversary, a birthday or just a long nurtured wish. Only the best will do for such occasions.

We want our visitors to gain the most possible from their tours. You'll find lots of briefing on this website - we want you to know as much as possible before boarding the aircraft. We've added new background about the planning of D Day code-named Operation Overlord.

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RED CARPET TREATMENT FOR YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS

While our air/land tours are not unique - we've seen such claims - we've been operating for eight years and like to think our team are second to none.

Once you set foot on these islands, British Sky Tours take care of your family and friends with the same kind of comfort, safety, convenience and relaxed efficiency that we provided for the Royal Family and Prime Ministers during our previous careers. So just relax and enjoying being treated like royalty.

We specialise in private air travel and tours designed for families, friends, staff, clients and academic institutions. We show you those places off the usual tourist trails, places we know from living in the countries over many years. You can book our services as a part of your holiday or just for a short trip. We can fly you wherever you wish in Europe, meet you in Normandy or Switzerland, whatever suits your plans.

More at our Tours and Touring pages.

We are sometimes asked about deposits. As a rule we do not take deposits - although you are welcome to pay one if you wish. Instead, once a customer has confirmed their intention to travel, we take a credit card details - although at that stage no money off the card - just to cover us against a last minute cancellation other than for reasons of force majeure.

Our USA agent is Barry Hyatt, whose company was established on Manhattan Island in 1932. Barry has many years experience in the travel business and we regard his representation of our tours as a great compliment.

Why not treat your family, your colleagues, your clients, indeed yourself.

Safe Hands

Bill Pritchard and Dave Frost are former British Airways jumbo jet training captains,

both own pilot's log books showing five years in the sky at the controls of big airliners.

You can make enquiries and book all our tours - air, Chunnel/ferry and road - through ourselves in Sedlescombe, East Sussex, UK and through our agent, Barry Hyatt CTC of Air & Marine Travel in Brewster, New York, USA.

You are very welcome to email post@britishskytours.com or airmartrav@suscom.net for more information.

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FINDING YOUR WAY AROUND OUR WEBSITE

Tours with overnight stays are offered by Channel Tunnel, ferry and road.

Our team, our guides and Air Adviser

How we operate is found at the Easy Sky Guide

For sample tour prices glance at the Easy Aircraft Guide

We always quote - please feel welcome to email for price quotes.

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ABOUT BRITISH SKY TOURS

LINKS

We're steadily adding history and opinion pages