Cotswold Helicopter Centre are pleased to announce a joint venture agreement with Gama Aviation which will create a new base at Fairoaks Airport.  This airfield on the south-west outskirts of London is very well placed for easy road access to Central London as well as the UK capitals two key airports, Heathrow and Gatwick.  This will be the eleventh flight training school in the UK operating the Guimbal Cabri G2.

The joint venture will start operations with a Guimbal Cabri G2, with access to the rest of Cotswold’s fleet, further Cabris G2’s, a Robinson R44, an Airbus AS350 and an Airbus AS355 as required.  Gama Aviation 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.

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.”

Steve Wright, Director, Gama Aviation Plc adds: “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.”

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

The G2 Cabri is a two-seat light helicopter with a three-bladed fully-articulated main rotor and a Fenestron tail rotor. It has a composite-construction fuselage, and is powered by a 180hp Lycoming O-360 piston engine derated to 145hp.  More Cabri G2 helicopters were built in 2015 than any other two-seat certified helicopter across the world, according to the annual factory production survey by GAMA, the General Aviation Manufacturers Association.

About Cotswold Helicopter Centre

Cotswold Helicopter Centre has been established over 10 years, operating at Cotswold Airport – also known as Kemble – and is well placed for Cheltenham, Gloucester, Bristol, Bath, Swindon and Oxford.  It is the exclusive UK distributor for the French manufacturer Helicoptères Guimbal, a busy professional flight training school and AOC holder for charter work.  A second training base opens at Fairoaks Airport in mid 2016.  Our fleet consists of seven Guimbal G2 Cabri helicopters, one Robinson R44, an Airbus AS350B2 Squirrel and an Airbus AS355 Twin Squirrel.  We offer Cabri helicopters both for sale and on attractive lease terms for UK flying schools.

For further information, please contact Cotswold Helicopter Centre on +44 1285 770740 or email contact@flychc.com

You can follow Cotswold Helicopter Centre
on Twitter at www.twitter.com/CotswoldHeli
on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CotswoldHelicopterCentre/
on the web at www.FlyCHC.com