Description
Aviat Aircraft Inc. is located in Afton, Wyoming. Aviat is engaged in the development, manufacture and servicing of sport and utility aircraft sold under the trade names of Husky A-1A and A-1B, the Pitts Special S-2C, and the Eagle II. The facility, situated two blocks south of the city center, consists primarily of six light manufacturing buildings containing approximately 72,000 square feet of enclosed space on about five acres of land in a 47 acre parcel.
The facility at Afton has many advantages as a manufacturing base including the availability of labor that has many years experience in the construction of light aircraft.
The Pitts Special is part of American aviation history. An early Pitts Special airplane is in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. Pitts Special airplanes are also in the Experimental Aviation Association Museum in Oshkosh, Wisconsin as well as the British Museum in London and many other aviation museums around the world.
The Pitts Special was designed by Curtis Pitts and is acknowledged as the worlds leading competition aerobatic and airshow display airplane. The Pitts Special has won more aerobatic competitions than any other airplane in history. It is the only fully FAA Certified competition airplane made in America and one of the very few which are manufactured in the world.
The current model is the Pitts S-2C, a two-place airplane capable of unlimited category competition and universally recognized as "the" aerobatic trainer, as it can legally carry both instructor and student, including fuel reserves, during all hard aerobatic training sessions. There have been some 700 factory manufactured Pitts and an estimated 600 that have been built from plans or kits in the period before 1984.
The Husky, conceptually based on the world famous Super Cub, is a completely new design, created in 1986 and fully certified in 1987. It was designed to do all the things that the Cub pilot used to say, "I wish it would do that!!!" - In other words an improvement on the world's favorite airplane. Over 650 have now been made and are in use all over the world. The Husky is fully FAA certificated and is in use throughout Canada, Australia, South Africa, all major European countries, Asia, and several South American countries. Used as an observation platform by law enforcement agencies, power and gas companies, environmental protection agencies and many others, it also is proven to have the power to be a very effective glider tug or to be used for banner towing, apart from being used as just a fun airplane for the sheer joy of flying.
This is the famous homebuilt kit of a very similar design to the Pitts, which was created by Frank Christensen. The Eagle also formed the famous "Eagles Flight Team" which was the longest continuous airshow team in the United States, running for 25 years. Famed as one of the most comprehensive and best kits of all time, the Eagle comes complete with 32 manuals (one for each kit subsection) that have been designed to lead the novice builder smoothly through the process of building his own airplane.
The company does not need to rely solely on the sale of new aircraft for its revenue. A customer service provides service work for our machines, both homebuilt and factory built. Aircraft owners often prefer their airplane to be maintained by the factory due to its specialist nature. This growing area of the operation provides services ranging from annual inspection to complete rebuild and refurbishment or restoration.