Gama Aviation joint venture with Cotswold Helicopter Centre.

Gama Aviation have entered into an agreement with Cotswold Helicopter Centre (“Cotswold”) to offer training courses to new helicopter pilots at our rotary base in Fairoaks, Surrey.

The joint venture will start operating with one helicopter, the innovative Guimbal Cabri G2, with access to the rest of Cotswold’s fleet, further Cabris G2’s, an R44, an Airbus AS350 and an Airbus AS355 as required. We will be responsible for all aspects of safety management, compliance monitoring systems and will provide the facility, while Cotswold will focus on training, sales and marketing.

Steve Wright, Director, Gama Aviation Plc comments: “Fairoaks has always been a favourably positioned, helicopter friendly base and I’m pleased that we are able to bring Cotswold to our historical home. This announcement follows an increase in our helicopter capability at Fairoaks as we aim to build it into a centre of excellence for the Group; the addition of training perfectly complements our existing maintenance, avionics and hangarage services.”

Oliver Heynes, Director, Cotswold Helicopter Centre comments: ”We are very excited to form this venture with Gama Aviation, their great facilities at Fairoaks give us great access to the prime London catchment area. We have experienced a period of very rapid growth recently, and Gama Aviation’s great expertise in the areas of safety management will help us develop our existing systems as the business grows. In return our involvement gives Gama Aviation a turn-key solution to operate helicopters that may be owned by their business jet management clients.”

Cotswold Helicopter Centre training operations are due to commence in June with training bookings for Fairoaks based courses starting immediately via: www.flychc.com or 01285 770740.