Wembury Beach

Wembury Beach sits at the mouth of the Yealm just east of Plymouth, a rocky, rockpool-rich foreshore looking straight out at the pyramid-shaped Great Mewstone island. It is a superb subject for aerial work, but honesty matters here: the beach, car park and clifftop are owned by the National Trust, which bans take-off and landing from its land. The legal workaround is to launch and recover from the foreshore below the mean high water mark, which is Crown foreshore rather than Trust land, so time your flight for a falling or low tide and set up on the wet sand and rocks. Plymouth's old airport is closed and there is no Flight Restriction Zone here, leaving open class G airspace, with Exeter around 40km away. The Mewstone is a designated bird sanctuary and the whole area is a Marine Conservation Zone, so keep your distance from the island, especially in the spring and summer breeding season, and never chase seabirds or nesting cormorants. Parking fills fast on warm weekends. A calm early morning at low water gives glassy water, soft light and a clear, uncrowded launch.