Tayside Aviation was a half-hearted attempt to make a hobby into a business when it was started in 1968 from a grass strip at Riverside Drive.
Flight enthusiasts Lovat Fraser, Alistair Gillespie and Douglas Shearer formed a company called Aerosport Ltd to operate a single-seat Tipsy Nipper aircraft.
The grass strip was established in 1962 by flamboyant Scottish construction engineer Willie Logan, whose firm would go on to win the contract to build the Tay Road Bridge.
The British Eagle Dove aircraft made the first scheduled passenger air flight in July 1966 but its services to Glasgow, Edinburgh and Prestwick proved short-lived.
The Dundee airfield closed in 1968 and Lovat moved the Nipper to Glenrothes before the grass strip was replaced with a tarmac runway and Riverside reopened in 1970.
Lovat bought a second-hand Cessna 150 for flight training in 1971 and changed its name in 1974 to reflect the new region when village and city were being lumped together.
Red Arrows pilot arrived in 1975
A major milestone was in 1975 when Ted Girdler was recruited as Operations Director and Chief Flying Instructor, having spent his last RAF tour as a Red Arrows pilot
“I first got to know Ted in the early 1970s when he was introduced to me by David Binney from Dundee at RAF Valley in Wales, where both of them were advanced training instructors,” said Lovat, speaking in 2000.
“In 1972 they were selected for the Red Arrows and I had the good fortune to fly as a passenger with both of them, an experience which remains with me to this day.
“A few years later I asked Ted if he would like to run Tayside Aviation.
“To my surprise and delight he accepted and moved to Monifieth with his family and had seven very happy and successful years with us before going on to run his own outfit in Kent.”
In 1977, the company was granted a CAA Air Operators Certificate (AOC) and provided an air taxi charter service using a six seat Piper Aztec.
The flight school was awarded the first RAF Flying Scholarship contract in 1978 and, in 1994, became the sole UK contractor for the Flying Scholarship Scheme, training more than 500 cadets per year with the support of seven sub-contractors throughout the UK.
The cadets each received 20 hours of flying training.
This prompted Tayside Aviation to purchase Fife Airport in 1995, and lease and operate Perth Airport in 1997 so the company then trained 250 of the 520 cadets each year.
Lovat had a particular soft spot for the aerodrome based at Scone as he learned to fly there with the Scottish Aero Club in 1959 on an RAF Flying Scholarship.
Tayside Aviation also provided aircraft on 24-hour standby to transport human organs around the UK for transplants and more than 50 life-saving flights were made.
The company became Scotland’s largest flying training and light aircraft maintenance organisation.
Countless young men and women were trained by Tayside Aviation, including Andy Shaw, who became British Airways’ youngest pilot in 1990 at the age of 23.
Tayside Aviation was the first flying school in the UK to offer gift vouchers for trial flying lessons with 30-minute flights for £85 and one-hour flights for £145.
As well as logging more than 5,000 flying hours during his career, Lovat was awarded an OBE in 1994 for services to the Air Training Corps and the Air League Scott-Farnie medal in 2005 for his contribution to air education training.
Change of ownership in 2007
Although he sold Tayside Aviation and retired as managing director and chief flying instructor in 2007, he was retained by the new owners as director of flying.
“As long as there is work for me, I will continue flying and gliding,” he said.
“I’ve a medical every six months, the same medical as commercial pilots. I get a lot of satisfaction in passing on what I’ve learned to others.”
Lovat said he still got a thrill seeing his hometown of Dundee from the air.
“I never get tired of flying around this area – it is beautiful,” he said.
“You see things on the ground you have never noticed before. There’s a lot of different things that contribute towards my enjoyment of flying.”
Jim Watt left the Royal Navy and flying in 1981 and worked for a few corporate companies before teaming up with two partners to buy Tayside Aviation.
In an attempt to shore up its core business – the training of airline pilots – Tayside Aviation invested £220,000 in a flight simulator.
The simulator could imitate 20 different types of aircraft, from single-seaters to larger passenger planes, and the controls were weighted to feel exactly like the real thing.
“Because Dundee Airport’s on the downside of a hill we get all the sinking air and it can cause havoc,” said Jim in 2008.
“You need to be an experienced pilot to cope with these conditions.
“That’s what makes the simulator so useful.”
While getting airborne was not cheap – and standards were high – the BSc (Hons) Professional Aviation Pilot Practice programme was launched in 2015.
The cost of learning to fly could be reduced by as much as one third by the degree.
Tayside Aviation celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2018.
Things were looking positive.
Proposals to create Scotland’s first Aviation Academy in Dundee received more than £8m as part of the signing of the £700m Tay Cities Deal in 2020.
Covid-19 was a blip in the history of the flight school before Balhousie Care Group founder Tony Banks acquired the business from the Watt family in December 2021.
Mr Banks said: “ARB Aviation is excited to be on this journey with Tayside Aviation.
“We look forward to building on Tayside Aviation’s stellar reputation and to working with the team to take the company to even greater heights.”
Triumph and tragedy for Tayside Aviation
Yet there was no sign of trouble on the horizon – publicly, at least – when the company welcomed back its founder, Lovat Fraser, in February 2023 to celebrate its 55th birthday.
Still a regular flight instructor at the school, Lovat was invited back to mark the special date and reminisce on Tayside Aviation’s journey to becoming a hub for training RAF cadets, commercial pilots and flight instructors.
The team at Tayside Aviation, including managing director Willem Marais, enjoyed hearing Lovat’s story and more about the origin of the company.
Willem said: “It has been wonderful to mark this milestone birthday with its original founder and taking a look back at Tayside Aviation’s many achievements over the years.
“Lovat’s passion for aviation and commitment to excellence is something we continue to celebrate and live by.
“Here’s to another 55 years of aviation excellence.”
The turbulence came in April 2023.
Tayside Aviation Limited entered administration with the loss of 22 jobs.
Joint administrators Blair Nimmo and Geoff Jacobs said the business had “ongoing working capital requirements that are unable to be funded”.
The administrators said the cash generation for the business was impacted by the number of pre-paid flying courses sold before Tony Banks bought Tayside Aviation, which adversely affected the company’s ability to generate income from new sales as manhours and air slots were being utilised to honour legacy prepaid courses.
The new owner funded the business to the tune of £1.5m and explored various funding and sale options before the administrators were appointed.
The business has since ceased to trade.
The administrators are hoping a new owner will come forward and snap up the assets.
A rescue mission would mark a fresh chapter in its 55-year history.
Conversation