Aviation View | Volume 1, Issue 2

91 AVIATION VIEW VOLUME 1, ISSUE 2 INDI ANAPOL I S EXECUT I VE A I RPORT more of the executive and business travel.” The Indianapolis Executive Airport sits on 567 acres with a 5500-foot runway that will be extended to 7000 feet by 2023. They are currently halfway through the $11M runway extension project, with much of the grading and drainage work already completed as of last year. This is a testament to the changing demographics. Not only are there jet owners based at the airport, but Netjets, Flexjet and Wheels Up can regularly be seen operating from the airfield. “Then there are the businesses that are using our airport just to fly in and out for projects,” says Sachs. “There was a grocery store being built near here, for example, and the company has been flying employees in multiple times a week during April. We’ve had home builders fly their private jets in to look at their development projects. The constant growth in the area means people are coming and going a lot. We’ve also seen many new companies exploring corporate aviation and looking at our airport as a perfect location to be based… where we are straddling the two counties.” To optimize attraction of that type of business, a full complement of hangars and top-notch services need to be offered. The Airport FBO, First Wing Jet Center, currently operates two large hangars on either side of the terminal and subleases a maintenance building and other storage buildings and T-hangars. Another company, Taft Aviation, manages the T-hangars. “It is kind of exciting that our FBO is in the process of developing 12 new executive hangars, as well,” says Sachs, “These are going to be somewhere in between our large hangars and T-Hangars, at 60x65 feet. So we are going to have a huge variety of spaces. We also have one large corporate hangar here which is owned by Beck’s Hybrids, one of the largest seed companies in the country. They have a Corporate Aviation Department with three jets – a Falcon and two Learjets – which they fly all over the