Saxonair continue to expand their fleet, with both a Robinson R44 added in the last week and a Hawker 900XP jet reported on order for the Norwich-based operator.

The company’s rotary wing fleet sees the addition of a low-time R44 Raven II from Belgium, previously OO-PVZ and now registered G-KLNJ.  Anna Loake of Saxonair declined to tell HeliHub.com what they will be using the R44 for, although there was a hint a of a future press release some weeks away.  The company’s rotary wing fleet now consists of a Eurocopter Ec120, based along with the R44 at Norwich, plus a Eurocopter Ec135P2+ based at Redhill in the expectation of gaining more work for it by working from a location nearer central London.  We note that the EC135 has been advertised for sale for some months now.

The R44 was advertised by previous owners van Zutphen BV as a 2009 machine with 350 hours.  Black with a copper stripe, the aircraft was priced at 299,000 Euros plus VAT, and its arrival in the UK is not its first visit here – it came over from Belgium for Helitech in September 2009, as seen in the photo accompanying this story.

Saxonair has completed construction on a massive facility at Norwich in the past year, and provides terminal and handling facilities to NHV for their North Sea rig-support operations.  Their fixed wing fleet includes a Beech 350 Super King Air, as well as two Citation Mustangs and a Beechjet/Hawker 400.  They hold orders for the 900XP, and was reported in 2008 as having an Embraer Phenom 100 due too, but there is no mention of that on their website today.

The company website is at http://www.saxonair.com and they have a helicopter-specific site too, at http://www.saxonairhelicoptercharter.com

Jeremy Parkin – HeliHub.com

Photo © 2009 Graeme Lovell