| Airline: | Hunting Aerosurveys |
| Founded: | 1944 |
| Ceased: | 2001 |
| Key People: | Percy Hunting |
| Fleet Size: | See Fleet below |
Hunting Aerosurveys Ltd was a British aerial photography company founded by Percy Hunting in 1944. Its operations became more diversified under the name Hunting Surveys.
The firm incorporated Aerofilms Ltd and the Aircraft Operating Company.[1] In 1947 it was using three types of aircraft: Austers, a Percival Proctor and a de Havilland Dragon Rapide and planned to acquire one or more Percival Mergansers. The company had contracts for work surveying for tin mining in Nigeria; oil in Arabia, Venezuela and Colombia; timber in Ontario; and mapping in Australia & Hong Kong (in 1963).[1]
Between 1957 and 1964, Hunting operated a specially converted Auster Autocar for smaller scale aerial survey work.[2]
In 1960 the firm was merged with Hunting Geophysics Ltd to form Hunting Surveys Ltd.[3] Threatened with closure in the mid-1980s, it was merged with sister company Hunting Aerofilms Ltd to become simply Aerofilms Ltd in 1987. The new company was able to provide state-of-the-art serial survey work and associated mapping, with the oblique aerial photography that Aerofilms had been undertaking since 1919. In 1997 the company was sold to Simmons Mapping in Somerset, a move that ultimately led to the complete closure of the oblique photography business (and its long-established photo library) in 2006, with the vertical / survey side of the business passing to the Somerset operation.