“When you paint an airplane, seven things happen, and six of them are bad.” So says Frank DeNisio, and he ought to know the potential pitfalls that can come between bare metal and a gleaming, durable paint job. DeNisio is operations manager of modifications for Dassault Falcon Jet Wilmington, the relatively new owner of the paint shop he has worked in for 27 years. Dassault Falcon Jet bought the Wilmington, Del. Atlantic Aviation facility in late 2000, and a new paint shop now under construction represents about $9 million of the airframer’s planned $30 million investment in upgrading the service facility.
A couple of months ago Dassault Falcon Jet held its third ceremonial groundbreaking in as many months. Following official gold-spade work in Little Rock, Ark., in May (also for a new aircraft paint facility) and Teterboro in June (for a new DFJ company flight-department hangar), DFJ officials (accompanied this time by Delaware Gov. Ruth Ann Minner) turned the first soil at the company’s Wilmington service center for a new three-bay, 40,000-sq-ft paint shop to replace the aging two-bay shop that came with the airframer’s purchase of the Atlantic Aviation base. When it opens next spring, the new paint shop will be one of the most modern paint facilities in the nation, according to Jack Young, president of Dassault Falcon Jet Wilmington. It will conform with the Environmental Protection Agency’s Title 5 regulations, which for the past half-dozen years or so have regulated the neighborliness of such facilities.
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