Patch design competition winners announced

After much deliberation, cogitation and digestion, I’m very pleased to say that we now have the winners for our competition to (almost) be a Heathrow air traffic controller for the day.

During Skies Above Britain we asked people to design the perfect embroidered patch for the discerning air traffic controller.

The design would have to incorporate the fact that, as the TV series showed, air traffic control extends well beyond the confines of an airport tower. The overall winning design will go into production as a special limited edition, while the top four entries will all get the chance to try our Heathrow tower 360 degree simulator.

It’s as close as it gets without doing it for real.

We were amazed at the quality and quantity of entries that came in and the judging was both good fun and very difficult. Having agonised over coming up with an top 10, we then handed over to Ady and Brian, who you’ll have seen throughout Skies at Heathrow and Swanwick respectively, to make the final decision.

The Winner

The overall winner is from Paul Weller. Ady and Brian praised its simple design but strong visual appeal, with the incorporation of an aircraft and the radar like central design covering both bases in terms of tower and radar controlling. They also enjoyed how the wings pointed to flight, but also the idea of a guardian angel – something that we saw in many of the designs as well. A worthy winner – congratulations Paul!

Our other three winners were James Coleman-Powell, Robert Whittingham and Ismail N Ismail.

Robert’s design

Ismail’s design

James’ design

Congratulations to the winners. We’ll be in touch to set up a date for all four to  visit the simulator and a huge thank you to everyone who entered.

Who knows, we may yet do this again…