Click here for our one day Normandy D Day Tour

WHAT OUR VISITORS SAY...

‘ WE reached our hotel beside omaha beach WITH OUR EYES OPENED WIDE ON THE REAL MEANINGS OF LEADERSHIP, TEAMWORK, PLANNING, TRAINING AND COURAGE.

AT THAt point we discovered none of the staff spoke english - we'd booked the hotel ourselves - adrian went into a huddle with the FRENCH staff and sorted out our whole evening including AN EXCELLENT dinner further along the beach and the local taxi driver. THEY TOOK CARE OF US BY SIMPLY FOLLOWING THE PLAN AGREED DURING THE HUDDLE, NOT A WORD OF WHICH WE UNDERSTOOD.

ADRIAN GAVE US HIS PHONE NUMBER BACK IN SUSSEX ACROSS THE CHANNEL, JUST IN CASE, BUT WE DIDN't NEED TO CALL! '

Benny Flowers,

Greenboro

North Carolina

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* MANAGEMENT TEAM TRAINING *

TEAM REWARDS AND CLIENT HOSPITALITY

SWISS NEWS

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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Welcome aboard British Skytours!

May we interrupt your day only for a moment?

One of the most respected investment bankers in America – whose company looks after a portfolio of 40 billion dollars and growing - urged that we should offer our Normandy trips to companies for management team training. Reeling from the credit crunch and grim outlook for this year, possibly next, company managers face the toughest challenges since the oil crisis some 35 years ago, challenges that demand cool heads and quick thinking, where business and personal financial survival are often at stake.

Most bankers already have failed this test. Few modern managers are ready for their turn in the front line. The military draft is long gone, those who served in Vietnam mostly retired. These days the USA and UK have professional armed forces. Fewer and fewer managers in business and industry have any exposure to the fighting services. Most have never worn a uniform let alone experienced combat. There's a whole world out there and another way of thinking - about which most adults know nothing. The media are spectators, not participants. Watching Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza and Swat on TV tells the public less than zero because most people - starting with the reporters - don't know how to interpret what they're looking at.

Nor was our investment banker friend talking about the ' survival ' training some managers put themselves through - which might build needed self-confidence but teaches little about the gift of leadership and the art of command in war at all levels. Few enjoy those special qualities, all of us can learn from those who did or do.

After all, our banker friend observed, with our combined experience of war and diplomacy plus management at industry level - we ought to be good at explaining linkage and lateral thinking!

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

We took his advise - began with company tours where the programme sometimes included a day or two in England before flying to Normandy for two or three days. We soon discovered that company chairmen and their fellow directors thoroughly enjoyed the experience and the lessons - and returned home with a new perspective on leadership and management.

Ready for take off and two days management training in Normandy

There are valuable lessons for any manager to learn from the intricate tapestry of success and failure on D Day. We look into both Allied and German strategic and tactical decision making at some length, including the strategic debate before D Day among the German leadership - which mirrors a debate in Britain during summer 1940 when threatened by Operation Sealion.

D Day was the most complex military operation in history and remains unlikely to be surpassed. There were huge production shortages right up to the last moment. On the night thousands of aircraft supported the landings and a sky train of transport aircraft and gliders delivered three airborne divisions to Normandy. Some time after dawn several thousand vessels of all sizes from battleships to wooden landing craft launched the invasion force onto the heavily defended shore - five divisions twice their normal size because of additional special armour and engineers to clear the assault beaches.

All this preparation called for supreme leadership, diplomacy, above all thinking power that could cut through the massive amount of intricate detail and see into the enemy's brain - plan the landings not as an end in themselves but as the first bold though risky step in the liberation of Europe.

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

Its capture required meticulous planning and training, above all supreme management skills and courageous leadership on the night.

Although the preparations for D Day took four years the battle could have been lost during that single morning – and nearly was on Omaha Beach – making D Day almost unique among modern battles. Moreover the bulk of the complex preparations were brought together only within the final few months before D Day.

More remarkable, once the invasion forces set off, their Commander, General Eisenhower, had no influence over the outcome. D Day succeeded because thousands of young men, many without any rank, did their duty, often deciding on the spot what was best for the isolated few around them, frequently under the most harrowing circumstances.

Omaha Beach where all manner of strengths - courage, training, loyalty, honour, tradition and solid cool-headed experience combined to overcome disaster.

We look at the planning, production, assembly, training, leadership and problem solving at all levels on both sides. And we do this by flying you over the parachute drop zones and glider landing zones, then along the whole invasion coast - before landing in France and explaining and discussing the legendary events of D Day on the assault beaches and battlefields among the lush pastures of Normandy.

We can also combine a trip to Normandy with a visit to Churchill College, Cambridge where the senior staff will very kindly show you the Archives of Sir Winston Churchill and Baroness Margaret Thatcher.

We offer no magic formula, no set of rules that always bring success. They don't exist. We leave it to you how the lessons of D Day apply to your business - but after your first hour in Normandy the words leadership and management will have new and profound meaning.

SWISS NEWS

Switzerland where everything runs like clockwork has a reputation for good management. Yet debate continues over Swiss management style. Recent trouble with Gadaffi revealed the Swiss Federal Council and government machine completely out of their depth when coping with a minor international crisis. Many believe that traditional Swiss processes of consultation are simply too slow in the face of today's ruthless competition. Others maintain that large companies and banks in Switzerland only land in trouble when they import senior management!

None dispute that the Swiss are brilliant organisers. The foundations of this national gift are laid at school where teamwork and co-operation are regarded as important life skills.

Most managers in Switzerland - including those in the Army and Air Force - none-the-less would be surprised how much they learn during a few hours in Normandy.

For the Swiss we would suggest road travel to Normandy with the option of an air tour over the landing grounds and assault beaches. However, if you start your tour in England, this allows us to include a visit to Sir Winston Churchill's Archives at Churchill College in Cambridge.

Your hostess opens the door to a new management world!

SPECIAL REWARDS, CELEBRATIONS AND LEARNING FROM ANOTHER GENERATION

Our day tour of the Normandy D Day Beaches from London makes a worthwhile surprise reward for your management team, potential or valued customers. You reward your management team while providing them with a unique training experience. You show customers that you are original thinkers. From our previous careers we know how to keep secrets. We arrange special celebrations and organise birthday cakes!

Americans living and working in London are only two hours from the legendary D Day beaches. Within thirty minutes of landing you are standing in the town square of Saint Mere Eglise. An hour later you are walking the sands of Utah Beach and soon afterwards Omaha Beach.

Americans working over here who take our tour remark how often they reflected that the D Day beaches are so close, and determined they would not miss this rare chance before returning home across the Atlantic.

There is no better place to understand the awesome risks taken and the heavy price paid for our modern liberal societies than on the bluffs above Omaha Beach.

We've taken company management teams and their clients.

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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.

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Pointe du Hoc still cratered from the big guns of the USS Texas.

RED CARPET TREATMENT

British Sky Tours take care of your staff team, family and friends with the same kind of comfort, safety, convenience and relaxed efficiency that we organised for royalty and prime ministers in our previous careers.

All running smoothly before HRH The Princess Royal flew home after the Seoul Olympic Games.

Group Captain Jeremy Johnson, Commodore Queen's Flight, Adrian, Julian and Margot - photos by Regine.

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.

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.

Otherwise, if you're a UK resident, just read below.

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