Avionics News April 2014 - 32

WHOLESALE PERSPECTIVE
Continued from page 31

Repairs and used equipment continue to be an important
part of its business, and a good percentage of its 80 employees
are technicians with more than 30 years of experience.
According to Dahler, the two go hand in hand, and most
larger wholesalers don't bother with used equipment. ASI
is a leading parts supplier dealer for Rockwell Colllins,
Honeywell, Telephonics, Chelton (Wulfsberg) and others.
Its repair business has remained steady, Dahler said, "but
we're keeping up with the market and expanding into the
repair of light accessories and digital avionics." ASI has
expanded its customer base in a similar fashion. "We started
with light then moved to the airlines and the military," he
said. Today, the company serves more than 6,000 customers
in air transport, general aviation and military markets.
Perhaps a more pressing challenge for everyone in the
industry is keeping pace with the speed of business. "Back
in the 1950s, everything was done by letter, and it was
excruciatingly slow; then came Telex, the telephone, fax and
online," Dahler said.
But these tools do not replace face-to-face business, they
complement it. Dahler didn't offer a crystal-ball future, but
he said ASI will capitalize on forthcoming opportunities as it
has in the past, by acting on those that build on its core skills.

Dallas Avionics Inc.
After working for a number of aviation companies,
from OmniAir and Air Associates to M. Hutton, in 1973,
Johnny Davis "decided to pursue the American Dream and
start his own place," said his son, Scott, who now leads
Dallas Avionics.

"Back then, we were a Narco distributor," he continued.
"That was the big ticket. At the time, most dealers were able
to do field repairs, so we also sold a lot of Narco parts. But
Narco is no more because King Radio built a good product
and out-serviced them, which is still a formula that works
very well today."
Through all the changes of the last 40 years, the one
constant, Davis said, is "Dallas Avionics' commitment to the
highest standards of integrity and customer service." Part
of the service equation is "finding the synergy between the
products the company distributes for more than 130 different
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avionics news

april

2014

manufacturers." If that product is a radio, the company also sells
everything needed to install it, from antennas and wire to circuit
breakers, relays and inverters. The products fill a 12,000-squarefoot warehouse, which also is home to 37 employees.
Describing its current customer base as "pretty much
intergalactic, we sell everywhere," the company is careful to
not compete with its customers, which is why its unlimited
repair station does no outside work. It only serves original
equipment manufacturers the company represents, giving
them a second tier of repair support to the end users of their
products. It also has an in-house test equipment calibration
lab that supports all who need its services.
"Back then, it was mostly GA," said Davis, comparing it
to today's maturing light-sport aircraft, which he sees as an
emerging market. "At the moment, we do more in rotorcraft
than any other market segment," he continued. "It's grown
massively over the past 10 years or so." Customers range
from helicopter modification shops and manufacturers
to large commercial operators like Air Methods and PHI
(Petroleum Helicopters International).
Providing everything from oil platform transportation to
medevac services at hospitals large and small, an aircraft
tracking and telemetry unit that communicates through
Iridium's global satellite network is just one example of
aviation's paradigm shift. When the company was founded,
according to Davis, new aviation innovations came from the
military. Now the military buys a lot of civilian, commercialoff-the-shelf technology to perform its assigned missions.
Like all businesses today, Dallas Avionics employs the full
range of online tools, but the primary customer interface is
a field service team whose members live in their respective
regions and visit their customers regularly. "We're high
support, not high pressure," Davis said. "We never want to
leave a customer flapping in the breeze."
Throughout the years, mass market aviation has been -
and continues to be - subdivided into smaller and smaller
niche markets. As a result, the companies making things for
these markets has gotten smaller, and distributors are more
important in reaching their customers and providing an
inventory buffer that connects their production runs.

EDMO Distributors Inc.
A shared passion for aviation is what united Ed Lansberg,
who owned an avionics shop in the Los Angeles area,
and Morris Brown, a Ph.D. in chemistry who taught at
Caltech. Enjoying a few opportunities to wholesale avionics
Continued on page 34

Avionics News April 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Avionics News April 2014