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But as air travel increased and the needs of travelers outgrew the island site, it became apparent that Portland needed another air- port. By 1935, Swan Island Airport became obsolete. The small airfield couldn’t easily be expanded, nor could it accommodate the larger aircraft and passenger loads expect- ed to become common in Portland. Plans immediately were conceived to relocate the outdated airfield to a larger site.
In 1936, with a $300,000 bond issue, the City of Portland purchased 700 acres of land along the Columbia River. This, too, was marshy riv- erside land that needed 4 million cubic yards of dredged landfill to be usable. A $1.3 million grant from the Works Progress Administration, a part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, helped pay for construction costs. The Portland- Columbia Airport was completed in 1940, with its opening ceremony on October 13.
A new terminal was located off Marine Drive
with the runways forming an X toward the
western side of the airport. Its location identi-
fier PDX was adopted after World War II, by adding X to the existing National Weather Service identifier, much like Los Angeles and Phoenix. The Port of Portland constructed a new terminal in 1959 between two parallel runways that had been newly constructed. That runway configuration remains in use, and terminal expansions and upgrades followed in 1977, 1986, 1992 and 1994.
Eight years after the new airport’s opening, Flightcraft began operations. The Beechcraft Bonanza happened to be introduced the year prior, and Flightcraft was heralded as one of the early stars in the Beechcraft dealer constellation. There were as many as six Flightcraft locations at one point.
We can credit the development of the electric scoop- type aircraft tug to Si King, one of Flightcraft’s founders. In 1945, Wilt Paulson founded the Willamette Aircraft and Engine Company in Beaverton, Oregon, to repurpose military aircraft for crop dusting and other civilian uses. After a move to Warrenton, Oregon in 1948, Paulson’s busi- ness morphed into the electric vehicle company known as LEKTRO. LEKTRO developed products for the logging, farming, golf and aviation industries. In 1967, Paulson and Si King got together to solve the problem caused by tow bars of the day, which often damaged aircraft nose gear when towing. Si King envisioned a system in which the nose gear could be lifted with a scoop to cradle the gear, eliminating the towbar. They created the Airporter electric towbarless tug. Thousands were built and sold around the world, and the concept is still in widespread use today.
It was the Beech 18’s height of popularity, and the Flight- craft team sold and serviced the amazing twin from its Portland facility. They operated Flightcraft out of PDX until the early 1970s when Beech Holdings bought the company to maintain its service center. Less than a year later, in 1973, Vin Manilla and David Hinson bought Flightcraft from Beech Holdings, and Hinson stayed on until 1978
Flightcraft services Dassault Falcons, Cessna Citations and Beechcraft King Airs.
when he left to start Midway Airlines. Hinson eventually was appointed to head the FAA under President Clinton.
Flightcraft was acquired by The Papé Group, a fam- ily-owned business specializing in capital equipment distributorships. It controls distribution of such heavy equipment manufacturers as John Deere, Hyster, Ditch- witch and Bobcat.
The Papé Group had been a Flightcraft customer, said Phil Botana, Flightcraft’s previous president, and bought into the business as another capital equipment distributor with a reputation for strong aftermarket support. “What Papé found,” said Botana, “was that this is a similar business but with a very different client base. Management was able to build relationships with other aircraft-operator customers – relationships that have helped the parent company prosper.”
Botana said, “The partnership decided to get out of the business. It’s likely the company management wanted to be in control of who ultimately took over the dealership.” Botana credits his predecessor, Ernie Sturm, with build- ing Flightcraft’s business into what it had become by then. He said Papé hired Sturm when it acquired the company, and he led the business through some difficult times. We have written a lot about Beechcraft’s mid-1980s decision to change its business relationship with its dealers. Under the old scenario, Botana said, most of a dealer’s profits were generated through aircraft sales. Maintenance and other support functions were not considered profit centers, and they existed at the dealer level mostly to support the sales department.
Beechcraft completely rewrote the business model. Botana said, “The [original] arrangement led to underde- velopment of the support market. Then when the [OEM] takes away the sales profits, it’s tough to revamp and turn around the business model.” Shop rates weren’t necessar- ily intended to generate profit but to incentivize owners to
June 2022 / TWIN & TURBINE • 19