Yingling Aviation Reaching into New Horizons

Two years after private equity firm AE Industrial Partners (AEI) acquired a majority interest in Yingling Aviation, the iconic Wichita maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) business is undergoing a transformation that is rapidly expanding its size and capabilities with additional hangars, multiple acquisitions, and new services such as winglet installation and paint capability for the largest business jets.

However, company executives stress that the nearly 80-year-old company has not forgotten its roots as a long-time piston, turboprop, and light-jet services company, and in fact is enhancing that business as well. Yingling was founded in 1946 as the first Cessna Aircraft dealer, a relationship that has endured for eight decades.

It spent most of its first 77 years as a family-owned business, initially with the Yingling family and then later, in 2000, the Nichols family. The MRO was sold in 2023 to AEI, which has, over the years, invested in well-known, successful aviation services businesses such as West Star Aviation, Global Jet Capital, StandardAero, Solairus, and Landmark Aviation. After the AEI acquisition in 2023, CEO Lynn Nichols has remained on the board and his son, Andrew, has continued as chief strategy officer.

AEI, however, brought over two then-retired executives from West Star Aviation: Robert Rasberry and Rodger Renaud, who took the roles of CEO and COO, respectively, in October 2023. They are working with the Yingling team and new ownership to expedite an ambitious growth trajectory that would see it acquire three local businesses within a year—in September 2024, Bevan Aviation, a 70-year Wichita fixture that brought avionics specialization capabilities; March 2024, neighboring Mid-Continent Aviation Services (MCAS), a full-service MRO that provided a range of capabilities; and January 2025, Global Engineering & Technology, which expanded on Yingling’s aircraft cabinetry and interior refurbishments capacity.

Not only have those acquisitions brought new specialties, but they have also provided much-needed space for Yingling’s quest to push up into the largest of business jets. MCAS added 80,000 sq ft of hangar capacity. And now Yingling spans 14 hangars, 550,000 sq ft of total space, and 450 employees, a number that is rising daily.

The company is not done, looking for additional space as it spreads out at Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport (KICT), just across Runway 19L/1R from Textron Aviation’s sprawling campus. Notably, it is preparing to break ground on 60,000 sq ft of hangar space for a paint facility that will be large enough to accommodate the Bombardier Global 7500. Construction is set to begin next year, with completion in 2027.

But Renaud told AIN that customers have already begun lining up for paint, reflecting not only their long-time relationships with a mix of customers but also a real shortage of such paint capacity. Yingling has begun training for work on such a scale, so it will be ready to go once it opens. One beneficiary may be Bombardier, which already contracts with Yingling for certain paint work.

Those relationships that Rasberry and Renaud have cultivated over their decades in the industry have helped Yingling build up an entirely new clientele: the large business jet owner.

That business really began to spool up after they arrived at Yingling. “The day we came, we knew that’s where we were headed,” Rasberry told AIN. “We laid a lot of groundwork. We had to make sure we had what we needed: resources—people, hangarage, obviously tooling, and all that—so that we didn't fail. So we didn’t really announce that we were here while we put some team together.”

But customers still called, he said, and they responded, “We’re not going to take something until we know we [are ready]. Once we were ready, we announced, and holy cow.”

The business followed. Bombardier Globals were the first two, but a recent visit showed Falcons, Gulfstreams, Challengers, and Hawkers onsite, along with the stable of Citations, Caravans, King Airs, and other longtime regulars.

Rasberry and Renaud said the evolution was not new to them, noting that West Star was a piston/turboprop shop before they came on board. Now West Star is one of the largest business aviation providers in the U.S., with multiple locations and a spectrum of capabilities across the business and general aviation fleet.

“We had really good people. We empowered them. We guided them. We talked with them. We allowed them to make decisions,” Rasberry said. “The customers wrapped their arms around them, became their friends, and that’s how we grew it—pretty simple.”

At Yingling, the leadership has brought in technicians with expertise, but has also been able to build on their own in-house talent and the Wichita community. Being in Wichita, many of the workers already had experience and knowledge of larger aircraft.

When they joined Yingling, the facility spanned eight hangars (mostly smaller). Some were just used for storage for Yingling FBO. The MCAS acquisition provided the company with space for its large aircraft work.

The shift also reflected the trust that they cultivated with the customer base, Rasberry said. It has brought new business, such as its appointment to join the Aviation Partners network as a winglet installer. The first was ongoing on a Falcon 900, with others waiting in line. That work included dry bay modification, required by an airworthiness directive.

While just getting started in this discipline, Renaud said this work goes back to the people Yingling has hired. “They’ve done more than anybody in the industry,” he said. And that was reflected in the smooth process on the very first installation; an Aviation Partners rep said it was among the best and fastest he’d seen, Renaud added.

Another newer capability involves Starlink satcom system installation. Yingling was on its sixth such project by last month.

Asked about what’s ahead for the future, Rasberry simply said, “Growing.” This is encompassing, he noted. “We’re going to grow the legacy programs that were already here. We’re not giving those up, but since we bought this, we’re adding the larger airplanes, all of the big names. So we’re going to grow all of those.”

As it looks at more capacity, Renaud said Yingling believes it has found a solution for more hangar space, but “we’ll need more than one. We’ll chip that way on them as we can.”

As for other acquisitions, Renaud added that the company is looking cautiously, and likely outside of Wichita. “We don’t want a project. If it’s a successful business that has good management, we would consider it, but we don’t want a project.”

Rasberry agreed: “It has to be good. It has to integrate into what we’re doing.”

As for the changes afoot internally, it initially brought caution. But long-time employees saw opportunities open up and the ability to leverage connections to get parts that, before, may have taken much longer to obtain. “It’s 100% communication,” Rasberry said. “We’re very customer- and employee-focused. The whole group is.”

As for the legacy customers, he acknowledged that there may have been some early concern, “but they figured out there’s no change. That is a great business we really have.”

In the meantime, employee recruitment and retention maintains a daily business at Yingling. The MRO last month launched a major campaign, reaching outside of Wichita to lure new workers to its rapidly growing business.