A Honeywell service center of the year, National Flight Services serves as the engine expert among Twin Commander Factory Authorized Service Centers. Working with the rest of the service center network, they overhaul the vast majority of TPE331s in the country and are the world’s only shop authorized to perform the Dash 10 upgrade.
National was founded in 1960 as National Flight Service, Inc. the FBO and operator of National Airport, a small, single-strip airfield just north of Toledo, Ohio. In 1966, in a harbinger of things to come, National Flight performed its first turboprop engine overhaul, and became a Twin Commander Factory Authorized Service Center in 1973.
The company relocated to Toledo Express Airport in 1969 (National Airport closed a few years later and a shopping mall was built on the site) and quickly expanded its capabilities to include sales of new Beechcraft and Twin Commander aircraft, aircraft maintenance, charter services, and flight training as well as traditional FBO line services. Over the years the company expanded to include remote AOG teams, and then refocused on its Toledo base. A few years ago, Herb Harvey purchased National Flight and employees say he has injected energy and a positive culture to the historic outfit. In fact, the national service center of the year honor from Honeywell came in Harvey’s first year at the helm.
In addition to the engine shop, the company’s 52 employees also support an engine component shop that services all the Honeywell accessories other than fuel controllers and prop governors, and an airframe repair business. They are a veteran-owned company, and 25 percent of the employees are veterans, something Customer Relations Manager Dave Stine is particularly proud of.
Stine said that the renewed energy around the Dash 10 program is a great thing for the Twin Commander community. Honeywell has been quick to deliver parts, and the whole upgrade requires about a month in the engine shop. Most of the time the owner takes his or her airplane to another service center, which then sends the engines to National. “We’re not competitors,” he said. “We’re part of the Commander team. It’s a family and the older these airplanes get, the closer the service center network stays.”
The Dash 10 upgrade brings numerous benefits, including better performance and lower lifecycle costs. But for years Honeywell priced the conversion so high it didn’t make sense when compared to the overall airframe value. National Flight Services worked with Honeywell for years to re-introduce the conversion into the market.
Twin Commanders are such great performers that it’s hard to imagine a major performance improvement from a more modern engine, but the benefits have been confirmed in testing. They include, a 160-shp increase per side, flat-rated torque to 16,000 feet, 25-knot increase in cruise speed, more than 2,800 foot-per-minute climb rate, 1,833-foot balanced field length, a 7-percent reduction in fuel burn, and cost savings.
They say there’s no such thing as a free lunch, but the Dash 10 upgrade pays for itself and then some. Honeywell is motivated to have owners opt for the upgrade, and National Flight thinks improving legacy airplanes is an important step in ensuring a robust market well into the future. The companies have priced the upgrade to be competitive with Dash 5 overhaul prices. Compared to overhauling Dash 5s, the upgrade only adds about $150,000 to the process. That’s not an insignificant investment, but when you compare it to the lifecycle costs, the balance quickly works in favor of the Dash 10s.
It starts with higher overhaul times. Dash 10 engines feature a 5,000 TBO. In addition, there’s only one, relatively inexpensive hot section inspection. In fact, the conversion essentially pays for itself just in the savings on that one inspection. Throw in the fuel savings, a significantly increased airframe value, and it’s clear why the upgrade was so popular when it was first released, and why National Flight is still doing more than one a month.
With a long and proud history, employees with many decades of experience overhauling 331s, and a focus on engine work, National Flight has a lot to offer the service center network. “Engines are what we do, and we do it well,” Stine said.
