november-december 2021 - 38

MRO FEATURE
" The industry
standard is 'you
send me your
landing gear,
I'll tear it down,
I'll find out how
many bad parts
there are and
I'll charge you
based on what I
find.' We decided
from the very
beginning not to
do that. "
- Yoel Arnoni
Group in 2012 with his partners Mike Washburn and
Russell Eckhart, whom he worked with at Arnoni
Aviation.
" Av8 is really a continuation of what we started at
Arnoni Aviation and did for almost 20 years there, "
he said.
Arnoni mentioned the company started as a parts
business, and eventually began buying airplanes to
part out. The company soon ran into difficulty getting
parts overhauled, so it brought the overhauling
process in-house. The company then had issues with
pricing and lead time on landing gear piece parts. It
began making its own FAA-certified piece parts to
combat those issues, specializing in Hawker aircraft.
" When we started Av8, we started overhauling
Hawker landing gear because it was something that we
knew and were comfortable with, " Arnoni explained.
Three months after starting The Av8 Group,
Hawker announced it would no longer sell piece
parts for landing gear. There were eight companies
overhauling Hawker landing gear at that time, but
they quickly disappeared. The Av8 Group survived
because it had already been reverse engineering and
certifying some parts for Hawker landing gear.
" We decided rather than drop out, we would
double down and make more of the parts instead, "
Arnoni said. " At the beginning of 2014, there were only
two companies that were left overhauling Hawker
gear. Av8 was one and the OEM was the other. We
increased our market share to about 80 percent of
the market on Hawker landing gear. "
The Av8 Group currently makes more than 400
parts for Hawker landing gear; there are only 12 parts
on the landing gear the company doesn't make. A
few years ago, the company expanded to Phenom
aircraft, as well.
" The Hawker aircraft, for all intents and purposThe
Av8 MRO flat
rate also covers all
additional parts
required in the
overhaul, regardless
of price and reason
for rejection.
on landing gear, but it also works on Hawker's TKS
deicing system, as well.
Company History
Arnoni has extensive experience in the aviation
industry. He started working in aviation in 1979 and
launched his own company, Arnoni Aviation, in 1986.
Arnoni Aviation was a parts and repair resource for
Hawker 125 series aircraft until Arnoni sold the company
in 2006. Arnoni would go on to start The Av8
38 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2021
es, went out of production in 2009, so we knew at
some point we needed to find another aircraft to
concentrate on, " Arnoni said. " Interestingly enough,
the Phenom started production in 2009. We started
reverse engineering and manufacturing piece parts
for the Phenom gear and we currently have more than
200 certified parts. We chose the Phenom because
the manuals were available but, very similar to the
Hawker, the parts were not readily available. "
Other Divisions
The Av8 Group has four divisions: Av8 MRO, Av8
PMA, Av8 AOG and Av8 Aviation.
" The MRO is where we started, " Arnoni said.
" When we saw the Hawker gear was going to start
falling off and before we committed to the Phenom
AIRCRAFT MAINTENANCE TECHNOLOGY
november-december 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of november-december 2021
