HAD GREAT FUN, sorry, mustn’t shout – it’s the deafness you know – one day in an Islander taking off on a positioning flight with no pax and with fairly low fuel levels. On the day in question there was a cracking wind gradient building upon an already stonking headwind. On reaching approx. 1000ft agl, H ‘n’ H requested an “early right turn on track”. There was a distinct delay in the response as the ATCO was clearly “backtracking and levitating” his viewing point back from his anticipated location of me at the time of my call as there was nothing to be seen in his initial anticipated position – somewhere near the upwind end of the active. Eventually, by craning his neck sharply up, and looking level with the tower (set mid-field) rather than towards the upwind end of the 2800 ft runway, he located me almost above him – at which point, he then realised why the rather strange request! The response was “C/S, early right turn approved ………… so that’s how it’s done, eh!!!!!!!”. So, h88b, the “vertical take-off” BN dream is almost within the grasp of the 250dB take-off - given a bit of a breeze to help things along! :-)