Aug. 10--The new Williams Aviation service center is reclaiming part of Akron's flying past while also helping position city-owned Akron Fulton International Airport for the future.
The service center, known in aviation circles as a "fixed base of operations," has opened in the same 200,000-square-foot hangar next to the Akron Airdock where Goodyear Corsair airplanes were made during World War II.
The company intends to capitalize on what it says is a rapidly growing private-pilot and corporate-aviation market that wants to avoid increasingly congested larger airports.
And its corporate parent, Canton-based U.S. Technology Corp., which specializes in removing paint from military aircraft, hopes to start another business inside the revamped and cleaned-up hangar: manufacturing small military aircraft.
"Local pilots are excited to see aviation here again," said Julie Wyse, project development coordinator for Williams Aviation. "The previous tenant was Sam's Club. It was used as a storage unit."
Company President Ray Williams authorized the spending of more than $1 million to clean up the hangar, repave around the building, add space for offices and pilots, and also install a new "fuel farm" where prop planes and small jets can refuel.
Williams Aviation will show off what it does in an all-day open house Saturday at the hanger, also known as the "E" building. The event, starting at 8 a.m., features at-cost fuel, food and raffles, plus 12aviation-related vendors. More than 3,500 invitations have gone out.
"There's a lot of history and a lot of employment that used to reside here," said John Eisenhut, vice president of U.S. Aircraft, which is affiliated with Williams Aviation.
Williams Aviation has 12 employees, eight of whom work full time and include aircraft mechanics, said Wyse. As business increases, more people will be hired, she said. The goal is to operate nonstop, she said. The company has employees on call 24 hours a day for one of its customers: the helicopter ambulance service University Hospitals MedEvac.
Williams Aviation is a Federal Aviation Administration-certified repair station that offers 50-hour inspections, annual inspections, fuel-tank repairs and other repairs and modifications.
In addition to the repair and fueling services, the complex has a pilot's lounge with a large flat-panel television, an office where pilots can check weather services and do flight planning, and laundry facilities.
The property is leased from LMA Commerce, a subsidiary of California-based Industrial Realty Group run by Stuart Lichter, who also is looking at building new corporate headquarters for Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. and redeveloping the tire maker's existing corporate campus.
Williams Aviation succeeds another service center that ceased operations several years ago at the airport, said Robert Bowman, Akron's deputy mayor of economic development. Akron was approached by Lichter, who sought the city's help so that Williams Aviation would get federal approval to begin operations at Akron Fulton, Bowman said.
"What's good about it, it's growth," Bowman said. Williams Aircraft also is making use of a large building that had been vacant, he said.
Business and air traffic at Akron Fulton is picking up, Bowman said. At one point in recent years, just 40 to 50 aircraft regularly operated out of Akron Fulton, he said. Now the number is more than 100, he said.
"We're not at this facility to compete with Akron-Canton" Airport, Eisenhut said. Williams Aviation instead wants to sell services to small general aviation and corporate aviation that larger airports typically are not strongly interested in, he said.
"You don't have the congestion (at Akron Fulton) that you get at a regional airport," Wyse said.
The hangar's future might also include aircraft manufacturing. U.S. Aircraft hopes in 2008 to begin making a small military turboprop, the A-67 Dragon, aimed at counter-insurgency and other missions. The company has built a prototype that it showed at this year's Paris Air Show.
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