Bellomy-Lawson Aviation

  ca 1963 to unknown date

  United States of America

TYPE: Airline & maintenance facility

IATA/ICAO CODES: Nil

HEADQUARTERS: Miami, FL

FORMER NAME: Nil

SUBSEQUENT NAME: Nil

Harold Bellomy and Charles Lawson first met in 1962 at L. B. Smith Aircraft Corporation, a Miami-based fixed based operator. A year later, as L. B. Smith went into liquidation, the two men set up their own company to convert former military aircraft such as Lockheed Lodestars into executive configuration. They also developed their own FAA-approved DC-6 freight conversion. Simultaneously, Bellomy-Lawson Aviation opened an airline subsidiary to fly cargo in the Caribbean and lower Florida, along with a subsidiary airline in the Netherlands Antilles, named CLTM (Caraibische Lucht Transport Mij). It also had scheduled charter rights to Turks & Caicos Islands, Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Thus, Bellomy-Lawson operated as a holding company, with two main subsidiaries: Challenge Aerospace Technology was the engineering arm, in charge of maintenance and aircraft conversions, and Challenge Air Transport was an airline that operated cargo flights. The latter was spun off in 1981.

A few years later in 1983, Bellomy-Lawson formed another airline named Aerial Transit. It was an FAA Part 121 carrier, which operated at its peak nine DC-6s and a Commando and employed 80 people, including 24 pilots.

November 1964* to August 1986*

• Curtiss C-46A-41-CU Commando: N7779B
• Curtiss C-46A-60-CK Commando: N5134B / N74173 (II)
• Curtiss C-46D-10-CU Commando: N6500G
• Curtiss R5C-1 Commando: N9070, N64288 (possibly only as a wreck)
• Smith CW-20T Commando: N295B / N65307
• Smith Super 46C Commando: N9900Z, N84905 / N89BL, N65306