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• Member Profile:AVOTEK TAKES AVIONICS TRAINING ONLINE

AVIONICS NEWS IS A PUBLICATION OF THE AIRCRAFT ELECTRONICS ASSOCIATION.

SEPTEMBER 2020a v i o n i c s n e w s . n e t

• Integrated Avionics Systems: SHRINKING COMPONENTS AND GROWING CAPABILITIES

• Industry Spotlight:TECHNOLOGY GIVES PISTON PANELS TURBINE-LEVEL TOOLS

Member Profile

EAGLE CREEK AVIATION Aircraft sales drive repair station success

EAGLE CREEK AVIATION

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AVIONICS SIMULATORSContinued from page 24

EAGLE CREEK AVIATION

S T O R Y B Y C H R I S T I N E K N A U E R

LOCATION:4101 Dandy TrailIndianapolis, IN 46254

PHONE: 317-293-6935

Eagle Creek Aviation’saircraft sales drive repair station success

A t Eagle Creek Aviation in Indianapolis, technicians service a wide range of turboprops and light and mid-size jets. With nearly 40 years

in business, they’ve developed an international reputation for their work on Twin Commanders. As Eagle Creek’s founder Matt Hagans showed early interest in the Embraer Phenom, the FAA-certified repair station cultivated another specialty when the Brazilian jet was introduced in 2007.

Located at Eagle Creek Airpark in northwestern Indianapolis, Eagle Creek has grown from a small aviation team into a full service center with an FBO and repair station that offers aircraft maintenance and avionics capabilities, flight training and aircraft management, sales, rental and charter services. It operates First Wing Jet Centers at Indianapolis Executive Airport in Zionsville and Frankfort/Clinton County Municipal Airport in Frankfort, both in Indiana.

“Our customers are primarily owner-operators and corporate flight departments,” said Rick Branch, executive vice president for Eagle Creek Aviation. “We also serve some government agencies and international military organizations as well as forestry services and law enforcement.”

The repair station’s connection to Embraer began in 2004 during the Phenom’s concept phase. Hagans purchased 21 preorder positions for resale and served on Embraer’s Man Machine Interface Committee offering input on the light jet’s ergonomics and design. When the Embraer Phenom rolled off the assembly line, Eagle Creek Aviation was one of the original authorized service centers.

Today, the repair station’s avionics technicians install a fair amount of Wi-Fi and ADS-B on Phenoms and Citations, as well as Garmin’s recently certificated G1000 NXi integrated flight deck on Phenoms, according to Randy Morelock, avionics manager.

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avionics news • september 2020 25

LOCATION:4101 Dandy TrailIndianapolis, IN 46254

PHONE: 317-293-6935

FOUNDED: 1982 by Matt Hagans

AEA MEMBER SINCE: 1995

WEBSITE: eagle-creek.com

EMPLOYEES: 130

FACILITIES: 37,000 square feet

WHAT THEY DO: Eagle Creek Aviation provides aircraft maintenance and avionics, FBO, flight training and aircraft management, sales, rental and charter services.

As for the Twin Commander, Eagle Creek has serviced the fleets of county fire and sheriff’s departments across the country as well as state and federal agencies. The projects are typically mission-specific. For example, technicians installed a Garmin G950, Genesys Aerosystems autopilot, tactical radios and an external loudspeaker system on a Twin Commander operated by a Canadian firefighting group.

Perhaps Eagle Creek’s most extensive and far-reaching Twin Commander projects so far have been for the National Army of Colombia in South America. Over the last several years, technicians have completed comprehensive nose-to-tail renovations on five of the military’s Twin Commanders. Developed by Eagle Creek, the Renaissance program takes

technicians six to nine months to accomplish.“We bring the aircraft back to zero time, which means

restoring virtually everything, from new windows and windshields to control cables and ducts,” Branch said. “We also install Garmin’s G950. It’s a major undertaking working with a foreign military operation, bringing the aircraft to the U.S., and making it like new.”

Over the years, Eagle Creek’s technicians have renewed hundreds of Twin Commanders, many of which were bought by Hagans for restoration and resale.

“Previously, Twin Commanders made up about 90% of

Continued on following page

ABOVE: An Eagle Creek Aviation avionics technician tests the Garmin G1000 NXi integrated flight deck upgrade to the Prodigy system on an Embraer Phenom 100. OPPOSITE PAGE: Eagle Creek Aviation specializes in servicing turboprops and light and mid-size business jets.

ABOVE: An Eagle Creek Aviation avionics technician tests the Garmin G1000 NXi integrated flight deck upgrade to the Prodigy system on an Embraer Phenom 100. OPPOSITE PAGE: Eagle Creek Aviation specializes in servicing turboprops and light and mid-size business jets.

26 avionics news • september 2020

our business,” Morelock said. “Since we’ve been heavily involved with Phenoms, they make up about 60%. The Phenoms are a great airplane, well-engineered and well-built. They will carry us into the future along with our charter and FBO services.”

Morelock served five years in the U.S. Marine Corps as an avionics technician on the Bell AH-1W SuperCobra and Bell UH-1N Twin Huey before joining Eagle Creek 22 years ago as an installer in the avionics department.

In addition to serving as avionics manager, he creates engineering and electrical drawings, designs instrument panels, writes electrical load analysis reports and works closely with designated engineering representatives when approval is needed.

Like Morelock, Branch has worked at Eagle Creek for more than 20 years. He started as an intern in 1999 and has served in virtually every role except for maintaining

airplanes. Today, he manages Eagle Creek’s sales and marketing team.

Branch and Morelock are indicative of the loyalty of the repair station’s longtime staff. Both are proud of the company’s success.

“The growth and development of Eagle Creek is one of the reasons I’m still here,” Morelock said. “We’ve watched Matt’s vision play out as the owner. He’s a salesman at his core. Our business model stems from sales. We sell a customer an airplane and then wow them with our customer service. When they’re ready to step up, we sell them another aircraft. We have longtime customers who we sold their first piston airplane to and have been with us all the way up to a Phenom.”

Branch agreed. “Our growth over the years has been tremendous,” he said. “We expanded out from Twin Commanders to include Citations and Phenoms. We moved into a new, larger purpose-built building in 2001. A few years ago, we acquired First Wing Jet Center with its big-time FBO and Cirrus authorized service center and expanded it. It’s been amazing to watch.” q

EAGLE CREEK AVIATIONContinued from page 25

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