Avionics News April 2022 - 28

FREEDOM AVIATION INC.
Continued from page 27
" I think the biggest challenge in the avionics industry
as a whole over the years has been finding technicians, "
he said. " I think it is going to get harder for owners of this
type of airplane to get work done, and it is going to be
more expensive. "
He noted that in California, Santa Clara County has
stipulated that 100 LL fuel will no longer be available at
San Jose's Reid-Hillview Airport and San Martin Airport.
He thinks these types of restrictions will spread.
Moorefield's team of four includes himself with 27
years on the job and two others with 20 and 17 years,
respectively. " I do all
the sales and day-to-day
running of the business, "
he said. One technician
knows how to make
anything work and is one
of the smartest technicians
Moorefield has ever met.
Then another, the shop's
production powerhouse,
likes to work by himself
wiring things up. There
is a junior technician
who does pitot-static and
transponder inspections. One technician recently left to
work for an airline, so the help wanted sign is out.
The shop recently retrofitted a full new Garmin panel for
a Cessna Model 560 Citation V. The work included new
radios and displays under a supplemental type certificate
from JETTECH LLC in Broomfield, Colorado. The STC is
offered exclusively through JETTECH'S approved list of
Garmin dealers. The Citation V model was stretched from
a Citation II, and this type first flew in 1987.
Moorefield is Lynchburg born and bred, and his path
to become the manager of an avionics shop is an example
of the American dream. Lynchburg is in tobacco country.
As he grew up as a child and a teenager, he worked on
tobacco farms. No stranger to hard work, as a high school
student, he worked in a gas station. He has always loved to
work with his hands, and his time at the gas station taught
him mechanical and customer service skills that helped
him when he moved on to aviation.
Moorefield wanted to go to college and learn about
electronics and computers. He met an aircraft owner at
the gas station who directed him to the local community
28 avionics news * april 2022
college to a professor who taught electronics by day and
worked at the Lynchburg Airport avionics shop at night.
" In the fall of 1994, I started work as a lineman at the
airport, finished my associate degree in applied science
and electronics technology at a community college, and
started work in the avionics shop of an FBO there on my
21st birthday, " Moorefield said.
Three months later, the lead technician who hired him
and the office support person left the company and he
found himself working alone in the avionics shop. Talk
about the deep end of the pool.
His professor would come over to the shop every
evening to repair radios and would check Moorefield's
work to get avionics released for use. A few years later,
Moorefield completed
his bachelor's degree in
electrical engineering
technology from Old
Dominion University and
added an A&P certificate
with authorization for
inspections so he could
do 100-hour inspections.
In addition, he got
a first class Federal
Communications
Commission license to
repair radios.
The avionics shop he started in was at Virginia Aviation
FBO, owned by two partners. One bought the other one
out, and when the sole owner died in 2010, his will split
the ownership of the business with anyone who had
worked for him for a decade. At that point, this included
both Moorefield and his wife, Tonya, who he started dating
seven years after she joined the FBO in office support. So
Jason and Tonya owned 22% of the business.
The business was in pretty bad shape, and the team of
new owners brought in an investor to help turn it around.
Moorefield became the director of maintenance. When
Virginia Aviation was purchased in 2014 by Freedom
Aviation, Moorefield and his wife got a small sum for their
ownership position. Jason went back to being the avionics
manager, focusing on what he knew best, and Tonya
became the parts manager at Freedom Aviation.
Now the shop does avionics line maintenance and
installations and has had as many as five technicians on-site
and an office assistant. " We make our own custom panels
and do full aircraft avionics overhauls on single-engine,
multi-engine, turboprop and light jet aircraft, " Moorefield
Avionics News April 2022

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