Flightworks Helicopter Centre has introduced its fleet to businessmen and brokers alike, in an effort to drum up more custom for the company’s Twin Squirrel and JetRanger aircraft, among others. Also coming to the fleet shortly, will be a brand new EC120.

When we caught up with operations manager Maddie Kilgour, the Coventry-based company was on the verge of holding an open day to promote awareness of the different uses of business aircraft. Kilgour, who formerly worked for Coventry Helicopter Centre before it went into liquidation last year, told EBAN: “The main purpose is to let everyone know that we’re here, to introduce our fleet. We’ve got six different aircraft types on display, we’ve made up a briefing pack to simplify the rules of the air and it’s obviously a fun day as well.

“The briefing pack has been designed so that in future, when someone asks one of our brokers where they can fly to, they can then answer their clients without having to refer to us.”

“Often the broker will ask what’s the difference between a single and a twin-engined helicopter or which one you need in which circumstances. With this ready-reckoner at their finger tips, if the client phones and says he wants to go into the middle of Birmingham, they can see right away that they’re going to need a twin-engined helicopter.”

Flightworks has a self-contained facility at Coventry Airport, with its own private car park. It has used

the Twin Squirrel and JetRanger for a lot of filming, survey and local council work. The company was also responsible for a new Virgin high-speed train advert and has done a lot of the photography work for the new Birmingham relief road.

In the field of vip charter, Flightworks carries out regular missions to sporting venues such as Silverstone and Ascot. Said Kilgour: “Our standard charter customers at the moment are businessmen. We’d obviously like the rich pop stars to come and see us as well but we’re quite buoyant with business charters.”

Also coming to the company’s fleet shortly will be a brand new EC120 which will also be used for

vip charters. In the event of all the company’s aircraft being unavailable, Flightworks’ head office in High Wycombe can supply a number of additional Twin Squirrels and JetRangers.