Working Behind the Scenes

Georgina Hunter-Jones

C & C Aviation demostrate the art of handworking essential parts of the helicopter.

C and C Aviation, the sheet metal work company, was started by Ian Carly and Steve Chowne (hence the name) in 1997. Both men were long time Bristow employees, and Ian had worked at Bristow Helicopters since 1979, including a long stint in Nigeria, which he describes as a pretty unregulated place to work.

Ian explains that the catalyst for starting their own company came from the feeling that while big companieswere doing their own sheet metal work, they were generally in competition with each other and that there was no small, independent company out there who could do the work while not being tied to one organisation or another.

“We started our company,” says Steve, “without any real plan. It just evolved.”

And evolved successfully. Although they started as just the two of them doing work in other companies, they have in the 10 years of trading grown to become a company with 10 permanent staff and subcontracting-in another 10 or 15 workers...