Liberty to acquire Falwell Aviation

As dean of Liberty’s School of Aeronautics, Dave Young has always had lofty dreams. He just didn’t expect that some would come true so quickly.

On Jan. 1, Liberty University will acquire Falwell Aviation, a company that provides fixed-base operations like refueling for the Lynchburg Regional Airport, and charter flight services for area corporations.

With this merger, Young said the school will acquire both a profitable business and an opportunity for students to gain further hands-on experience.

It also means Liberty won’t need to go through with plans to build its own aeronautics training facility, which had been presented to Campbell County supervisors as recently as October.

Liberty Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. explained that the chance to buy Falwell Aviation came as a welcome surprise.

“The school will attain the status almost immediately that it hoped it would attain over the next decade,” Falwell said. “It will be a really unique place for students to learn not only to fly planes, but also about the charter business and mechanics.”

Included in the sale is a 55,500-square-foot facility with three aircraft maintenance and storage hangars, maintenance workspace, flight operations, classrooms, aircraft dispatch, student study areas and customer service facilities for charter passengers and other planes, Young said in a news release. It also includes five planes for student pilots.

Falwell Aviation is owned by its founders, Calvin and Lawrence Falwell, who are first cousins of the late Jerry Falwell Sr.

Jimmy Falwell, the son of Lawrence Falwell, said that the sale price has not been finalized, pending further inventory of assets, and declined to provide an estimate. Falwell, who serves as director of operations, said that while the business has suffered like many other companies during the recession, the sale is not economically motivated.

Instead, he said, the Falwells approached Liberty about the sale because they wanted to honor and support the mission of their late cousin, Jerry Falwell Sr., and because, as men in their late 80s, they wanted to find an exit from the business. The brothers also own Falwell Airport, which will not be part of the sale.

Falwell Aviation and Liberty University’s aeronautics programs already have a close working relationship and have worked together to train Liberty student pilots for roughly half a decade. Today, Falwell Aviation provides a variety of services for the Liberty Aeronautics School, which holds classes at Falwell Aviation’s Lynchburg Regional Airport hangar.

When the present school began as the aviation department in 2002 it had only four students. As student enrollment grew to more than 200, so did the needs of the programs.

The partnership with Falwell Aviation seemed to be a logical fit, said both Young and Jim Parker, Falwell Aviation’s general manager.

Student Kristie Morris, a senior commercial aviation major at Liberty, said that she is especially interested in what it could do for the mechanic program, which will be moved to Falwell Aviation from its current home in The Plaza in Lynchburg.

Morris is considering going on to complete the mechanic program after graduating from Liberty in May with a commercial aviation degree.

“If ever we have a problem in a plane, it is a whole lot better to be a mechanic,” Morris said.