Eagle Creek Aviation’s Aircraft Sales Drives Repair Station Success
At 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.
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.
