Bellhouse Group MD elected Fellow of Royal Aeronautical Society

Bellhouse Group MD elected Fellow of Royal Aeronautical Society

Keywords: Royal Aeronautical Society, Bellhouse Aerospace Group

Mark Abbey, managing director of the Bellhouse Aerospace Group in Wigan, has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society (see Plate 14).

Born in Goole, East Yorkshire, UK, Mark took an apprenticeship with British Aerospace and, in 1984, became the Apprentice of the Year. Just two years later he was the youngest CAA accredited flight line fitter within British Aerospace. After a spell as a planning engineer, he was soon a project manager and was responsible for the introduction of the first PC-based planning and monitoring system within the company's Brough site.

Plate 14 Mark Abbey FRAeS, managing director, Bellhouse Aerospace Group

Several promotions followed until, by 1994, he was in charge of the manufacturing line of Hawk jet Trainer aircraft, now famous for their Red Arrows role and used by air forces all over the world. In that position, Mark was part of the team that achieved a build rate of 42 aircraft in seven variants in a single year.

In 1997, he joined BHW (Components) Ltd, a Hampson Industries plc company, as production director and shortly afterwards he was made managing director of the Bellhouse Aerospace Group, a multi-million pound company producing fabricated components and assemblies for an international range of aircraft. Earlier this year his company won the North West European Foundation Quality Manufacturing(EFQM) Business Excellence Award.