Origins
Castle Air was founded in 1979 by Cornish entrepreneur Roy Flood as an offshoot of his Castle Motors car sales business. Flood entered aviation after losing his driving licence through speeding, and, in order to sidestep this inconvenience, learned to fly a helicopter.
The company began as what has been described as a 'glorified hut', home to a single Bell LongRanger. Castle Air enjoyed a growth spurt in the 1980s, as a number of ex-Navy pilots wishing to continue flying professionally joined the team. Among these are the company's two most famous pilots, Keith Thompson and Michael Malric-Smith, Keith is now a company director. The company's inventory began to grow and change, acquiring Agusta A109 helicopters and Bell JetRanger aircraft (built under licence by Agusta).
Today, Castle Air is largely given over to aerial filming charter work, but it is also a helicopter sales and leasing business, importing aircraft from around the world and adapting them for British CAA certification. It also takes in aircraft for servicing, and is an authorised Agusta service centre. On occasion, the aircraft and pilots are called upon to do simple passenger flights - an occurrence rare enough to be a treat, as it is a rare opportunity to fly with all of the aircraft's doors on. Thee company provides operational conversion training for experienced pilots wishing to certify on different aircraft.
Read more about this topic: Castle Air
Famous quotes containing the word origins:
“Lucretius
Sings his great theory of natural origins and of wise conduct; Plato
smiling carves dreams, bright cells
Of incorruptible wax to hive the Greek honey.”
—Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962)
“Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.”
—W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)
“Grown onto every inch of plate, except
Where the hinges let it move, were living things,
Barnacles, mussels, water weeds—and one
Blue bit of polished glass, glued there by time:
The origins of art.”
—Howard Moss (b. 1922)