Michael S. Owen, Kevin McPhillips, Harry Green, and Lynn C. Wilson form this all-cargo carrier at London (CTN) in May 1976 to offer split cargo charters to points in West Africa. In addition, the founder/owners establish the aircraft engineering subsidiary Redcoat Aviation Services, Ltd.
The partners now win a contract to operate the commercial activities of Gemini Air Transport, Ltd., established at Accra, Ghana, in 1974, but since dormant. Under terms of the agreement, Gemini will provide the aircraft and London-based Redcoat the crews and expertise.
Scheduled revenue flight operations commence in June with a single Gemini Bristol Britannia 253C that operates a weekly roundtrip all-cargo flight from Accra to London (LTN) via a refueling stop at Valencia, Spain. Ad hoc charters are undertaken throughout Europe, Africa, and the Mideast. Even after Redcoat, in spring 1977, acquires an operating certificate for flights under their own name, it will continue to manage Gemini’s Britannia (and will do so right up until the time of its own failure in 1982).
A Bristol 175 Britannia 312F is acquired by Redcoat and is named Christian after the Owens’s son. It begins revenue operations in May. Shortly thereafter, a Britannica 253C is purchased; it is named Amy after Kevin McPhillps’s daughter. Together, the two turboprops undertake a variety of scheduled flights from London (LTN) to Accra and around the West African coast to Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Gambia. A trooping contract is won from the U. K. Ministry of Defence and pays the airline to make weekly roundtrips between RAF Lynham and the Central American country of Belize.
As the decade approaches its end, the Christian is retired and replaced with another Britannia 253C. The new addition is christened Amy and the previous unit is renamed Christian. With a great energy crisis at hand, Redcoat joins with Airship Industries, Ltd. in a project designed to determine whether a riding cargo airship might be more cost effective than a fixed-wing aircraft. Sketches are made for a large airship to be known as the R-40 Skyship.
Flight 103, the Christian, with five crew and three passengers, takes off from Boston for London on February 16, 1980 in snow, fog, and moderate to severe icing in precipitation. The freighter, hoping to complete the final leg of a flight from Belize, reaches an altitude of 1,700 ft. and then rapidly descends into a wooded area near Billerica, Massachusetts, where it crashes (six dead).
During the summer, a swing-tail Canadair CL-44D, previously operated by IAS Cargo Airlines, Ltd., is obtained and in ceremonies at Lasham Airfield, is christened James, in honor of the son of Lynn Wilson. The James and the Amy soldier on for another two years. Unable to maintain economic viability, Redcoat shuts its doors in 1982.
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