Yingling Aviation has announced significant expansion to its current facilities at Wichita's Dwight D Eisenhower National airport. Construction on a new 23,000 sq ft facility for aircraft avionics and maintenance has begun. In addition, the company is adding another 50,000 sq ft of newly-leased space consisting of a paint hangar, prep hangar, service, aircraft interiors and office space. The paint hangar can accommodate up to a Hawker 800 mid-size jet. The additional expansion includes parking and ramp area.

“We have completed an agreement to lease the facilities on the east runway (1R/19L) at Dwight D Eisenhower National airport located immediately north of our current facilities,” says Lynn Nichols, CEO of the company. “Obviously this is logistically a great fit for our operations.” The facilities were recently occupied by Hawker Beechcraft Services and vacated when Textron Aviation combined them with the Textron Aviation service centre across the east runway last year.

“The opportunity for Yingling to offer aircraft paint services has long been on our list of new services to provide, so having these facilities, particularly next door, is a perfect situation for us. Adding paint will complement our interior, avionics and aircraft maintenance services. Generally speaking, when customers have their aircraft painted they often want avionics upgrades, interior refurbishment and timely maintenance items done at the same time. Adding these paint capabilities positions Yingling Aviation in the marketplace as a full-service MRO,” Nichols continues.

“The newly-added 50,000 sq ft facility will undergo a major facelift and renovation inside and outside over the next year. This will also result in Yingling adding more new jobs. We're continuing to add A & P mechanics and avionics technicians and now we'll be hiring aircraft painters as well. We already have several customers lined up for aircraft paint work, so we will be off and running as soon as the facilities are ready. We're planning on a mid-January, 2019, start date for paint services to begin."