A PEER who helped develop a small former RAF airfield near Kidlington in Oxford Airport has died aged 87.

Frederick Caryll Philip Cavendish, 7th Baron Waterpark, joined CSE Aviation in 1959 after returning to the UK from Kenya.

He became the company’s sales director, selling Bell, Piper, Lear, Cessna and Embraer aircraft, all of which he flew and many of which he himself delivered to his overseas customers.

When Lord Waterpark and CSE Aviation first arrived at Oxford Airport in 1960 they sold just six planes in that year — but in the nine following years they sold 600 of just one make alone.

In the time CSE Aviation operated from it, Oxford Airport, used by the RAF during the Second World War, gained an international reputation as one of the most important flying training centres in Europe and as a trading centre for light aircraft.

Since being set up in 1963, Oxford Air Training School, which was a division of CSE Aviation and still operates as Oxford Aviation Academy, has trained 26,000 pilots for 80 different airlines and government bodies.

Lord Waterpark became a director of Handley Page Ltd in 1968 and in 1984 he became deputy chairman and managing director of CSE International Ltd, and was then appointed chief executive of CSE Aviation Ltd in 1990.

He only retired when the company was sold in 2007.

Lord Waterpark was born in 1926. His first flight was as an eight-year-old when AT Campbell-Black, who was co-pilot on the first flight from England to Australia in the 1930s, took him up in a plane. Educated at Eton College, he was commissioned into the Grenadier Guards in 1944, serving in the 4th and 1st battalions in Germany between 1944 and 1946, where one of his duties was to guard Grand Admiral Doenitz, commander-in-chief of the German Navy, after his surrender.

Known by his middle-name Caryll, he inherited the Irish baronetcy in 1948 when his father died — the same year he gained his private pilot’s licence.

Following the war he settled in Kenya where, in 1949, he bought his first aircraft, a Piper Cruiser.

In 1951 he married Danièle Alice Guirche and together they farmed on the Kinankop, high in the Aberdares of central Kenya.

During the Mau Mau Uprising, he became an assistant district commandant of the Kenya Police Reserve, flying with the Kenya Police Air Wing between 1952 and 1955.

While director of Spartan Air Services, he carried out many high-level survey flights and other special operations for the British Government which included mapping the Seychelles before returning to Britain.

In more than 60 years as a pilot he amassed 11,500 hours in command and flew 158 types of aircraft, ranging from single to multi-engined piston, turboprop to jet, gliders and helicopters to seaplanes and flying boats.

Lord Waterpark died on October 16 and is survived by his wife and his children Caroline, Juliet and Rory.