BEING asked to make a washing machine fly is a highly unusual request, but three men in Hatherleigh turned this vision into reality for an international advertising campaign.

As a result of the campaign, the trio formed the company Flyonix, which undertakes aerial cinematography for the film, surveying and commercial industries.

It all started for Rupert Brandon-King, Ben Bailey and Ben Whiting when they pooled their engineering expertise and resources to create an advert for the travel rewards firm Avios. Members of Avios collect travel vouchers towards flights.

From this, the 'Anything can Fly' advert was created. The advert shows household objects, including a lawnmower, stereo and the aforementioned washing machine, flying up into the sky.

The team was given a deadline of around two months to get the project finished, working late into the night in an old barn, often cutting up various household items to see if they could make them fly.

Mr Whiting said: 'With the short time frame of about two months, our team went into overdrive to get the household items ready for action.

'While on location in Spain filming the ad, we realised from the camera crews that remote aerial photography was quite primitive, so we decided to do something about it. The result is Flyonix.'

The trio created Octocopter, an eight-armed remote controlled helicopter that uses a Canon 5D camera to take photographs and record footage.

Mr Bailey said: 'With live feeds to the ground station, we give the client a fully operator-controlled sight of what the camera sees, with all on-board functions being used.

'To achieve something that hadn't been done before was incredible. There were many sceptics along the way.'

Rahul Patel, head of brand and advertising at Avios, said: 'The team's technical expertise to make a washing machine, petrol pump and radio fly created a really powerful and intriguing television advert.

'Millions of people worldwide have seen the advert and we are extremely pleased with its impact.'