Millisle Beach Park

Millisle gives you a wide, gently shelving sandy beach on the east side of the Ards Peninsula, backed by a low promenade, a boating pond and a grassy beach park. It's an easy, unpretentious spot: flat, open and free to park, with plenty of room to launch over the sand at low tide well away from people. The foreshore below the high-water mark is Crown Estate rather than council parkland, so take-off from the wet sand is the cleanest approach - the manicured beach park itself falls under Ards and North Down Council, whose byelaws can restrict flying, so keep to the beach and be ready to move on if asked. Views run out across the Irish Sea, with the Copeland Islands and, on a clear day, the Scottish coast on the horizon. Note the airspace: Newtownards airfield lies roughly 11km west and Belfast City's FRZ around 22km west - you're comfortably outside both, but it's worth knowing they're there. It's a family beach, so busiest on summer weekends; a weekday morning at low tide is quiet and gives clean, empty sand. Onshore easterly winds can be brisk and carry salt, so rinse your aircraft afterwards.