2025 was a difficult year for us.
The acquisition of the Army's remaining Gazelle fleet mid-summer meant that it was all hands to the pumps to move, store, service, sell, ship, test and maintain an awful lot of extra aircraft.
Our Chief Engineer Chris retired and as he is without doubt the UK's most respected Gazelle Engineer we certainly miss him, but we've managed to find three new engineers who are settling in nicely. But with CAA audits, 4 x aircraft builds and 3 x Major inspections - it's been a massive year for Falcon Aviation who have achieved huge things with very limited resources.
The airshows have been tricky to Navigate with virtually all of them being impacted by poor weather and Solent was reduced from a 4 ship down to a pairs display due to airspace restrictions. We also experienced what is probably a first in that one of our aircraft went unserviceable on start, which in the world of Gazelle's is almost unheard of. Additionally, our pilots have also had to navigate licencing changes implemented by the CAA - so in all it's been a tricky year.
Planning for 2026 has started and we hope it may include a short trip across the Channel to Sanicole in Belgium. Wings and Wheels are the first to confirm our attendance, hopefully others will follow in the next few months and other invitations will arrive with regard to additional shows across the UK.
Please see our EVENTS page for the full 2026 programme.
Our Charity work with Naomi House continues and we must once express our gratitude to Airbox Systems for their continued, outstanding support with their ACANS software.
Our Lynx project (XZ678) is still on track and slowly edging
closer to completion despite the arrival of the new Gazelles pushing it back a little.
Importantly we envisage no significant hurdles in fulfilling the project and are increasingly confident that XZ678 will take to the skies once more, albeit slightly later than we had initially hoped.
Our 2026 calendar is currently empty, but the next few months will hopefully see it filling whilst we continue to train and develop new routines in anticipation of a busier season than last year.