origins.
Going back to the origins of this thread a Dundee farmer wanted to start a local airline to tap into the blossoming Scottish oil exploration business. R C had been operating Eastern Seaboard Air Sevices with an Aztec and was appointed Ops Director of the new McDonald Aviation based in Dundee (grass only then) and I became CP. The newly acquired Aztec was supplemented by the purchase of a fixed-gear Heron G-ANNO (which type I had time on) which was purchased from Fairflight, Biggin Hill where the higher echelons consisted of Fred Mulligan (Engineering and Boss) son Reg and Gordon Burdess (I think - 30 plus years ago!) both BA pilots. Paul Mulligan entered the picture later.
The new company commenced operations under Fairflight's AOC until it got its own and as a result had a Fairflight pilot "supervising" ; the first a recent ex-Hamster without I believe any Heron time! A certain amount of sniffing around for opportunities naturally occurred, as a result of which Fairflight moved into the oil scene based in ABZ. Paul entered the scene and the rest as they say......................
McDonald ended up with A R (later Britannia) G H (later SIA) (R going on to BCal and I to Dan) up front and G W (presently King of Excel I believe) then Colin Pollard (presently in the sandpit). Munim Choucha from Fairflight the Engneer (sadly RIP).
2 DC 3's (G-AMPO and G-AMRA) were bought with expansion in mind - one pilot became type-rated just as the owner-farmer decided to sell them on - and when his brother lost a huge amount of money selling cattle in the States he downsized to the Aztec and we all bailed out to the airlines.
The new guy piled a full pax load in a loaner Aztec into the hills at TLA on one engine and the company then folded.
In a different life (with Dan) on the 748 at ABZ I met up with Ian Woodley who was the Cargo Manager then. He moved onwards and upwards to the greater things mentioned in earlier posts.
Sumburgh, Alidair, Edinburgh Flying Servces - John Turnbull and his Aztec antics! Those were the days!