The world’s largest private King Air operator is exhibiting at the Farnborough Airshow for the first time in a bid to broaden the appeal of its fleet of 150 special-mission twin turboprops, available for hire for everything from covert spy operations to aerial mosquito spraying.
Dynamic Aviation (Hall 2 Stand A24) has 500 employees at its headquarters about 100 miles west of Washington, D.C., where the company operates a sprawling King Air heavy maintenance and modification center on a privately owned airstrip in Bridgewater, Virginia. Its biggest customer is the U.S. Department of Defense, which relies on Dynamic Aviation’s King Air 90s and 200s in support of airborne ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) operations around the world.
The company’s goal this week is to entice other government, military and paramilitary organizations to take advantage of its highly customizable aircraft fleet.
“What sets us apart is our speed of delivery and ability to modify our airplanes for a vast number of missions,” said Dynamic Aviation president and CEO Michael Stoltzfus. While outfitting aircraft for the U.S. military missions is the biggest piece of the business, the company is also active in providing aircraft for firefighting, aerial spraying and airborne data acquisition.
One of Dynamic Aviation’s most recent missions involved spraying dispersant chemicals in the Gulf of Mexico to break up oil spewing from BP’s ruptured undersea well. The company dispatched a King Air 90 to the area days after the disaster, flying up to four dispersant missions per day, as well as supporting dispersant-dropping C-130s by relaying the locations of oil slicks.
Another important mission for the company has been the dropping of millions of sterile male insects, which are intended to compete with wild males for
the affections of female insects, thereby reducing the populations of subsequent generations. Dynamic Aviation has flown more than 250,000 hours in support of sterile insect programs in 11 countries on three continents.
“We can do just about any mission that’s possible, anywhere in the world,” Stoltzfus said. Here on the Farnborough Airshow static display line, Dynamic Aviation is showing a King Air 90 outfitted as an ISR platform featuring a high-power surveillance camera and painted in flat gray. The company is one of the world’s largest purchasers of pre-owned King Airs and also maintains one of the largest pools of King Air spare parts.