Ulick McEvaddy: how fixing tractors made me an aviation millionaire

Ulick McEvaddy, 56, has been tinkering with aeroplanes ever since he flew in his first Piper Cherokee at Castlebar airport in the 1960s. He and his brother Des founded Dublin-based aeroplane-leasing firm Omega Air. They learned their engineering skills "fixing tractors in the remote highlands of Mayo" on the Irish west coast, where his family ran a 112-acre dairy farm. "Because we were good engineers we were always asked to fix the aeroplanes if there was ever a problem. Although I wouldn't tell the Irish aviation authority that, because neither of us had aviation licences."

He became an intelligence officer in the Irish Army, then left in 1981 after he noticed a gap in the market for aeroplane parts. Even though the Republic of Ireland is not a member of any military alliance, "we were always invited as guests to NATO exercises, to observe missions and exercises", he says. "And there were never enough tankers for air refuelling. It was the one thing that the Allies, and the Americans in particular, were short of." At the time, one air-refuelling plane was needed for every three fighters, he says. But the Allies only had about one for every ten.

The Bank of Ireland had already backed the brothers in an investment in a Dublin ice rink, and so was willing to lend the pair another IR£250,000, which they used to buy an ex-Pan Am 707 that was lying on the tarmac at Dublin airport. "It was being sold by a bank that was liquidating the company. So we decided to take it apart for scrapping." The idea was to start selling spare parts to the military, and steadily grow the business until they had enough money to buy and lease aeroplanes. In this, he freely admits his military contacts "were a great help".

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Operating out of Maastricht in Holland because "it was right at the hub" of the continent, over the next 18 months they bought and scrapped three more planes, then bought another two in 1984 for £1.5m a pop. They leased these to Somali Airlines for £100,000 a month, bringing in £2.5m in turnover by 1985. They continued to buy planes and began converting the likes of ex-civilian 707s, DC-9s and DC-10s, for use as military air-refuelling tankers, by making their engines more fuel efficient, more powerful and less noisy.

The US military became good customers, buying used 707s for its Joint STARS spy plane project, and for air-refuelling services. As well as being a close cousin of the US Air Force's ageing fleet of KC-135s, a popular air-refuelling plane, the leased Boeing 707s were cheaper to run because they saved the military from shelling out the hefty investment involved in buying aircraft, and directly employing flight crews and maintenance personnel. For example, it costs the US Navy $7,500 an hour to lease an Omega 707 tanker, compared to $9,750 for the Air Force to operate its own.

Today, Omega Air owns 40 aeroplanes, and the brothers, after the sale of investments in private radio and residential property, are worth more than €100m. It would be tempting, no doubt, to take it all and head to Monaco to live a tax-free lifestyle. But "I'm quite happy to make my contribution to Ireland inc. A savage loves his native shore."