The Team will be based in the Kingdom of Bahrain from the middle of March to the middle of May and will be known as ‘The Blades in Bahrain’. Two of the high-performance Extra 300 LPs have already left their base in Sywell to start their 3000 mile journey.

The aircraft are being taken apart at Wycombe Air Park with the separate components strapped into purpose built containers and flown by freight. Amongst other tasks the wings will be taken off the fuselage, tightly packed to allow no movement, and loaded on to the cargo aircraft. It will take a total of three weeks to build the containers, dismantle the aircraft and then rebuild them. The boxed Extras will leave the United Kingdom on the 21st February and will be met in Bahrain on 23rd February by Blade 4 Myles Garland. Subject to weather the remaining two aircraft are flying out of Sywell to Wycombe Air Park on Tuesday 13th February at 1600 hrs.

“We’re obviously taking a lot of care moving the aircraft” said Myles Garland. “There’ll be thorough packing here in the UK and I’ll fly out to Bahrain to supervise the off-loading and take them through customs. Three engineers will then fly out to join me and we will start putting them back together to fly in early March.”

2 Excel Aviation Limited has created a strategic alliance with Magnum Events and Exhibitions Management (MEEM) to provide the same services they provide in the UK to the Kingdom of Bahrain and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Capitalizing on the exceptional skills and heritage of the Team, the Blades will provide awe-inspiring public and private displays; opportunities to fly in the front seat of their Extra 300s; and the chance to use the display team’s exceptional capabilities as a marketing and communications tool. They will display at a number of high profile events including the Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix – the third FIA Formula One race of 2007.

Pictures of the aircraft being taken apart are below: There will also be a diary from the pilots during their visit on www.2excelaviation.com

We took off the turtle deck in order to remove the wings and tailplanes.

We then put the turtle deck back on and put the aircraft on 20ft crates. You can see they are at angles and the spats are off too. They are tightly strapped down to their chocks which in turn are nail-gunned to the crates.

The aircraft are full of other gear we need to take too and we wrap them in cling film so animals can not get in during transit.

The tailplanes are then packed in to boxes and strapped under the aircraft on the crates.

The wings are taken in four separate 30ft boxes.

We also needed to take off the spinner in order to make the crate 18 inches smaller so they can fit on the Jumbo 747.

We used Universal Packing to make and pack the boxes and crates but the pilots and engineers obviously helped along the way. We are using DHL to transport the aircraft.

They leave for Amsterdam today on a lorry which is obviously the most dangerous part of the journey. They have 36 hours on the ground for security processing and they fly to Bahrain on Friday where Myles Garland (Blade 4) will be there to meet them.