The Early Years
London Helicopter Centres Ltd was established in 1991, as Thurston Helicopters (Engineering) Limited, by the family team of Mark and Theresa Souster. At that time it was based at a private heliport in Kent, with a staff of three, including two engineers and maintained five Robinson R22s and one Agusta Bell 206.
In this guise we were the first company in Europe to gain JAR-145 approval, and held this approval for some three months before any other company was approved.
The Move to Redhill
By 1993 the company had outgrown the private site and moved to hangars 2 & 3 at Redhill Aerodrome.
In 1994 helicopter pilot flight training school was opened and by 1996 the company was once again in need of additional space and took a further lease on Hangar four, occupying in total 28,000 square feet at Redhill aerodrome. At the same time helicopter charter operations were commenced from Redhill.
Expansion
In 1999 another maintenance base at Elstree Aerodrome was opened and the company's name was changed to London Helicopter Centres. In the same year it commenced professional pilot training courses, and became a JAA approved FTO for modular CPL training.
In 2000 LHC gained UK CAA BCAR A8-20 approval for Permit to Fly recommendations and maintenance of ex Military Gazelle helicopters. Under this approval a Bell UH1H and a Hughes OH6 are also currently maintained.
Avionics
Our own
avionics department was formed in 2001 and has completed many bespoke avionics installations in both helicopters and fixed wing.
Engineering
The
engineering department maintains one of the widest varieties of helicopters of any company in the UK, including Agusta A109's, EC135, MD902, AS355, AS350, EC120, B206, SA341, R44, R22 and B47. It employs a high ratio of licensed to unlicensed engineers and has experienced Licenced Aircraft Engineers's for each type maintained.
Further expansion
In October 2005 the engineering department moved into the vacated Bristow Helicopters main facility at Redhill. The flying department into the adjacent Servotec building.
Operations
The flying department has two sub divisions namely
charter and
training, and flies in the region of 3,000 hours a year.
Training
The training arm carries out Ab-initio
Private Pilots Licence training for both helicopters and fixed wing aircraft. It also conducts
Commercial Pilots Licence Modular training, instructor ratings, and conversions onto most common piston and turbine single and light twin engined turbine helicopters.
Charter
The charter
fleet includes one Single Pilot IFR [SPIFR] EC135, one SPIFR AS355 twin squirrel, one AS350B2 single squirrel, one AS350B3 single squirrel, two EC120 colibris, and two Bell 206 Jetrangers and four Robinson R44s. The R22 is also used on occasion for filming work and there is usually at least one on the AOC.
Patriot Aerospace
In 2009 Patriot Aviation Limited bought 90% of the company to form the Patriot Aerospace Group. Sir Peter Rigby is Chairman of the Group and Mark Souster is Group Managing Director. The group comprises of:
- London Helicopter Centres Limited
- Heliflight UK Limited.
- Patriot Aviation Limited
- Coventry Airport Limited
The groups operating bases are :
- Redhill Aerodrome
- Coventry Airport
- Gloucester Airport
- Wolverhampton Airport
- Enniskillen Airport
Patriot Aviation’s engineering activities were merged into LHC under the LHC brand and approvals and Heliflight UK’s AOC was merged with the LHC Air Operators Certificate.