Duncan Aviation's satellite facility at Centennial airport in Englewood, Colorado, has added SWAT services to its range of avionics installation and repair services. SWAT stands for survey aircraft interiors; write prompt quotes; artistically clean, touch-up, dye and correct; and transform appearance and functionality.

Located at the full-service Duncan facilities in Battle Creek, Michigan; Lincoln, Nebraska; and Provo, Utah, and now at the satellite facility in Colorado, the SWAT teams go through an aircraft and evaluate the condition of the small items that are not part of scheduled services. Duncan says its teams look for the little imperfections that automatically catch the eye and detract from the overall aesthetic of the aircraft so they can fix them. Duncan's SWAT teams are able to touch-up paint, spot-clean carpets, condition and re-dye leather seats, reweb seat belts and repair hardware on galley cabinets.

One of the reasons Duncan says it developed SWAT years ago is because the service is synonymous with preventative maintenance. It says its teams can do a little work on an aircraft, making small improvements by repairing the scuffs and dings, and those minor fixes go a long way to help refresh the appearance of the interior and retain the value of the aircraft.

“In the time I've been on the job, I've spent a month in Lincoln, Nebraska, learning the Duncan Aviation way from Interior SWAT specialist Tony Houk and his team,” says Andrew Kleinkopf, SWAT lead tech. “My extensive training consisted of attending debriefs with the pilots, learning the SWAT process and working hands-on with the SWAT team as we adjusted hydrolocks, lightly cleaned and conditioned seat leather and worked on window shades.”

“We are excited to add the SWAT capabilities as part of this phase of our satellite growth,” says manager of satellite operations Matt Nelson. “We're happy to welcome Andrew to the team, and we'll see how quickly we're able to build up the service in Centennial and then consider adding the service to other Duncan Aviation satellite facilities in the coming year.”

After attending college at Fort Lewis in Durango, Colorado, Kleinkopf joined the United States Navy and served as a ship supervisor and quality assurance supervisor in the first Gulf War in the early 1990s. Back in Colorado after his service, he studied electrical engineering at the Colorado School of Mines. Kleinkopf spent 15 years working for Xerox, and over the last three years he's worked for Steris, integrating hospital operating rooms nationwide with audio visual equipment.