West Wittering Beach

West Wittering is a wide, clean sand-and-shingle beach at the mouth of Chichester Harbour, backed by the dunes of East Head. It is a beautiful, spacious coastal flight at low tide the sands stretch for hundreds of metres, giving safe separation from people, and the views run across the harbour entrance to the Isle of Wight and along the Manhood peninsula. This is a caution site for good reasons. East Head itself is a National Trust dune spit and a fragile SSSI keep take-off and landing on the open main beach, not the dunes. The whole of Chichester Harbour is an internationally important site for overwintering and breeding birds; between autumn and spring huge flocks of waders and brent geese use the flats, and a drone will flush them, so fly outside the sensitive season and never chase birds. Airspace is straightforward Goodwood aerodrome is about 13km northeast, outside its zone, and you are below the high Solent controlled airspace. The beach is privately run by the West Wittering Estate and gets extremely busy in summer with a big paid car park choose an out-of-season weekday morning. Sea breezes and salt spray are the main flying hazards. Handled thoughtfully, it is a superb estuary-mouth location.