X-Nico

2 unusual facts about Britten-Norman Defender


Maritime Security Agency

The agency also operates three Britten-Norman Defender aircraft for the purposes of search and rescue and navigation.

Britten-Norman Defender— The MSA operates three aircraft of these generation.


2007 Alderney UFO sighting

The passengers of flight A-Line 544 departed in a BN2a Mk3 Trislander aircraft at 2:00 PM in fine weather with good visibility.

Air Panama

On December 20, 1989, during the United States invasion of Panama, two Britten-Norman Islander aircraft owned by PARSA that were out of service due to the suspension of revenue service in the country were damaged beyond repair in crossfire and they were written off.

Anne Sharp

In March 1947 she became a founder member of Benjamin Britten's English Opera Group, singing Britten roles at Glyndebourne, Sadler's Wells, Lucerne, Scheveningen, Oslo and Copenhagen as well as the company's home base at Aldeburgh.

Arthur Oldham

In 1952, after Edmund Rubbra pulled out of the project, Oldham provided a variation for Variations on an Elizabethan Theme, a collaborative work with other contributions by Lennox Berkeley, Britten, Imogen Holst, Humphrey Searle, Michael Tippett and William Walton.

Aurigny Air Services

Aurigny became the first commercial operator of the Britten-Norman Trislander in July 1971 and the airline remains the world’s largest operator of the type.

Barry Robins

In Colorado, he also had the speaking role of Puck in Britten's opera A Midsummer Night's Dream, and a few cameos at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

Bradford Festival Choral Society

Two performances of Britten’s War Requiem, in 1964 and 1967, are particularly remembered.

Britten-Norman

The company's historic home is located at Bembridge on the Isle of Wight although airframes have been assembled under sub contract in Romania for more than 40 years.

Britten-Norman BN-1

In 1951 John Britten and Desmond Norman built and flew an ultra-light monoplane, their first aircraft, which made its first flight at Bembridge, Isle of Wight, on 16 May 1951.

Britten-Norman Islander

Used for aerial reconnaissance and photography in Northern Ireland during Operation Banner.

Britten-Norman Trislander

Designed by John Britten and Desmond Norman, the Trislander is a further development of Britten-Norman's better-known Islander aircraft in order to give it a larger carrying capacity.

Britten's Children

Britten's Children is a scholarly 2006 book by John Bridcut that describes the English composer Benjamin Britten's relationship with several adolescent boys.

Cheshire Constabulary

Since December 2001 Cheshire Police have operated a Britten-Norman Islander fixed-wing aircraft, registration G-CHEZ.

Coconut Island Airport

On 16 January 1999, Uzu Air Britten-Norman Islander VH-XFF was operating a passenger and cargo flight from Horn Island,NT with 3 passengers and 1 Pilot, when on final approach the Pilot in command noticed a vehicle was parked on the runway with nobody attending to it.

Colin McPhee

In 1942 he arranged Britten's Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, a work for string orchestra, for two pianos, to be used for Lew Christensen's ballet Jinx.

Curlew River

This theme is common to almost all of Britten's dramatic works: Peter Grimes, Billy Budd, The Turn of the Screw and Owen Wingrave all focus on an outsider protagonist.

Edith Coates

While at the Royal Opera, Coates notably sang in several world premieres, including Madame Bardeau in Arthur Bliss's The Olympians (1949), the Housewife in Britten's Gloriana (1953), and the She-Ancient in Michael Tippett's The Midsummer Marriage (1955).

Eric Crozier

He directed his wife, Nancy Evans, in the role of Lucretia in the 1946 premiere of Britten's opera The Rape of Lucretia at Glyndebourne, and later succeeded Peter Pears as director of the Aldeburgh Festival.

Five Canticles

Also titled "Abraham and Isaac" and numbered opus 51, this piece was written in 1952 for Peter Pears, Kathleen Ferrier and Britten to perform as a fundraiser for the English Opera Group.

Frederick A. Britten

Britten was elected as a Republican to the Sixty-third and to the ten succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1913-January 3, 1935).

Graeme Danby

British engagements also include Bartolo in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro for Opera North and Garsington Opera; Collatinus in Britten's Rape of Lucretia at Buxton Festival; and Sacristan (Tosca), Bosun (Billy Budd), Benedict (La Vie Parisienne) and Masetto (Don Giovanni) for Scottish Opera.

Heather Harper

She is noted for her performance of Elsa in Wagner's Lohengrin, the title role in Strauss's Arabella, Ellen Orford in Britten's Peter Grimes, and the Governess in Britten's The Turn of the Screw.

Janine Jansen

The Beethoven was recorded with Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, and the Britten with the London Symphony Orchestra.

Jennifer Vyvyan

She was also known for her interpretations of the soprano solos in Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, Britten's War Requiem, and Bach's St John Passion and St Matthew Passion.

John Shirley-Quirk

Notable recordings include many of Britten's works and Mahler's Eighth Symphony under Sir Georg Solti on Decca, and Vaughan Williams' vocal works under Sir David Willcocks and the Choir of King's College, Cambridge for EMI.

Jonathan Gregory

Throughout his career, Gregory has been a regular concert performer, giving performances in the UK of oratorios and orchestral music, including Bach’s St Matthew Passion, St John Passion, Mass in B Minor, Christmas Oratorio, Elgar’s Apostles, Handel’s Messiah and Britten’s War Requiem.

Juist

Their 4-seat Cessna and their four 10-seat Britten-Norman Islanders serve Juist airport, which has the second highest number of movements in Lower Saxony after the capital airport Hannover.

Klawock Airport

On April 6, 2005, about 14:35 Alaska daylight time, a twin-engine Britten-Norman BN-2A Islander airplane, N29884, sustained substantial damage following a main landing gear component failure and subsequent loss of control while landing at the Klawock Airport, Klawock, Alaska.

Lucilla Udovich

She made other appearances with the Santa Cecilia Orchestra in Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle, in Verdi's Requiem, and Rossini’s Petite messe solennelle; and with the RAI Orchestra in Peter Grimes and Britten's War Requiem, and Schönberg's Gurre-Lieder.

Michael Britten

Jason Isaacs's role of Michael Britten has met with praise from most television commentators.

NAC Freelance

Designed by Desmond Norman when with Britten-Norman the BN-3 Nymph was an all-metal high-wing braced monoplane powered by a 115hp Lycoming O-235 engine.

National Youth Choir of Scotland


They have sung numerous arrangements and original pieces by prolific Scottish and international composers including Eric Whitacre, Poulenc, Bernstein, Britten and Ken Johnston.

NDN Firecracker

In 1976, Nigel Desmond Norman, one of the founders of Britten-Norman, the manufacturers of the Islander, set up NDN Aircraft to build the Firecracker, a single piston engined trainer designed to replicate the handling of a jet trainer.

Papa Westray

Britten-Norman Islander aircraft operated by Loganair fly from Papa Westray Airport to Westray and Kirkwall; the hop from Papa Westray to Westray is the world's shortest scheduled flight, at approximately 2 minutes.

Peter Manning

The Britten Quartet was the first British Quartet to be offered an exclusive EMI contract and recorded a substantial 20 disc discography including works by Beethoven, Schubert, Schnittke, Ravel, Verdi, Brahms, Cherubini, Janáček, Tippett, Prokofieff, Britten and Vaughan Williams.

Philippine Coast Guard

On 22 January 1999, after eight months of existence, CGAG acquired its first aircraft, a BN Islander from the Philippine National Oil Company – Energy Development Corporation (PNOC – EDC).

Ralf Gothóni

He has recorded for various labels, including BIS, Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, EMI, CPO and Ondine, such works as Benjamin Britten's Piano Concerto, Heitor Villa-Lobos' Choros XI, and the first and second piano concertos of Einojuhani Rautavaara.

Sarah Beth Briggs

She has produced recordings of Bartók, Beethoven, Brahms, Britten (the world premiere of whose Three Character Pieces she gave in 1989), Chopin, Haydn, Mozart Schubert and Rawsthorne on the Semaphore label.

Sir John Lawes School

The school is split into seven houses, Austen (Red), Britten (Yellow), Hepworth, (Green), King (Silver), Lawes (Orange), Newton (Blue) and Ryder (Purple), named for Jane Austin, Benjamin Britten, Barbara Hepworth, Martin Luther King, John Bennet Lawes, Isaac Newton and Sue Ryder respectively.

Skagit Regional Airport

In the 1980s, Harbor Airlines operated commercial passenger flights into and out of MVW to Seattle-Tacoma International and to Oak Harbor, WA, using Britten-Norman Islander aircraft.

St Peter and St Paul's Church, Aldeburgh

Britten is also commemorated in a stained glass window by John Piper and Patrick Reyntiens.

The Little Guy

Hearing that Taylor was watching Sunday Night Football, Britten asks what in particular the commentators said at that time.

The Winsford E-ACT Academy

The Academy has four houses which, as a Specialist Music School, are named after English composers, Britten, Purcell,Elgar and Sullivan.

Thomas Hemsley

In 1960 he created the role of Demetrius in Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream with the English Opera Group at Aldeburgh.

Vanessa Wagner

Britten: Sonata for cello and piano (with the cellist Ophélie Gaillard)

Vittorio Missoni

Vittorio Missoni's plane, a forty-four year old Britten-Norman Islander, disappeared on January 4, 2013, after taking off from Los Roques Airport in the Los Roques archipelago, where he had been vacationing, en route to Caracas, Venezuela.


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