Story ID: 431 Flying Colours
Flying Colours Starts Expansion at St Louis
By: Ian Sheppard
Caption: Canadian completions and MRO specialist is investing heavily in upgrading its facility at St Louis Airport.
Word Count: 591
Flying Colours (Booth N5908) has started work on the latest expansion phase at its St Louis, Missouri, base, where it is adding a new building, updating several back shops and doubling the size of the cabinetry workshop. In addition, it is increasing the workforce by some 30 percent (around 70 more employees).

The upgrades to the facility, which is located adjacent to the end of the runway at Spirit of St. Louis Airport (KSUS), represents the third phase in the Ontario, Canada-based company’s long-term strategy. Once completed in December, the changes will add 40,300 sq ft of new floor space, taking the total footprint there to more than 100,000 sq ft.

“The new site’s layout has been specifically designed to improve productivity, efficiency and streamline the work flow,” said Sean Gillespie, executive v-p, Flying Colours. “[It] will comfortably accommodate a CNC room for design, an expansive machine room with a range of detailing tools, two dedicated temperature controlled spray booths, insulated buffing and sanding sections, two varnish and paint mixing rooms, as well as assembly, framing and finishing areas.

“Another feature will be an enclosed curing room where varnish and paint will be baked on to monument cutouts,” while upgraded upholstery, avionics and engineering workshops are also part of the upgrade plan, Gillespie continued.

“A series of offices for production control planning and production management teams, as well as conference rooms, storage areas, and further offices will complement the workshops and provide comfortable, stylish customer meeting areas too,” he added.

“Our new building gave us a blank canvas on which we have designed and created the ultimate cabinetry workshop,” said Gillespie. “It will look as pristine as an operating theater when we open, provide a great working environment for our existing and new team members, and a superb location for customer visits.”

This expansion phase represents a multimillion-dollar investment from Flying Colours, which committed to the project having won several set of cabinetry projects, for which work will begin in the first quarter of 2018.

Tail-to-Tail MRO

Flying Colours specializes in all mid- to large-size business aircraft, including the Bombardier Global Express and Challenger families, Dassault Falcon, Beechcraft/Hawker and Gulfstream models, and is an authorized service facility for Bombardier as well as a Bombardier Preferred Completion Center. 

According to Gillespie, at present it is working on three 120-month (8C) maintenance inspections for a trio of Bombardier Globals at its Peterborough, Ontario facility. The checks involve comprehensive structural inspections, for which the company has had to build a customized Global tail dock.

“The number of Global C-check requests we receive is growing, so we’re dedicating time and money to training our team and investing in our infrastructure to be ready to meet the demand,” said Gillespie. He added that owners are also having a number of interior modifications performed while the aircraft are in for maintenance, including floorplan changes, soft furnishing upgrades and touching up of woodwork.

At the same time, connectivity upgrades include installing new cabin management systems, plus Ku-band, Ka-band and ADS-B Out functionality.

Each heavy inspection is anticipated to take up to 100 days “pending any unexpected repairs,” he said, with the first aircraft due to be redelivered to its owner in December.

Gillespie said that a further two Globals are waiting for 8C inspections at Peterborough, adding that discussions are “in various stages of negotiation” for several more aircraft requiring similar checks.