Woolacombe Beach

Woolacombe is a three-mile arc of firm golden sand backed by the dunes of Woolacombe Warren, a magnet for surfers and one of Devon's grandest beaches from the air. The catch for pilots: the National Trust now owns and manages the Marine Drive car park and the Warren dunes, and prohibits take-off and landing from its land. The clean solution is to park (paying) then walk down and launch from the wet sand below the high-water mark - Crown Estate foreshore, where the Trust's ban doesn't reach. Fly out over the sea and the open beach rather than over the dunes or sunbathers. There's no controlled airspace nearby, but this is a hugely popular family and surf beach, so privacy and take-off space are the real constraints - go early, out of season, or at a low, wide tide when the sand stretches for hundreds of metres. Baggy Point to the south is Trust land too; keep clear. The dunes are an SSSI, so avoid overflying them in bird-nesting season. Best conditions are a low tide at dawn with long shadows raking the ribbed sand, or a clean groundswell throwing lines of surf across the frame for scale.