With delivery of a reconfigured Piaggio Avanti twin-turboprop pusher on September 19 and a second green Avanti expected this month, Stevens Aviation will bring its total output of the model to three. The October aircraft is the second of a series of seven completions being performed at Stevens’ Donaldson Center in Greenville, S.C., under an agreement with Piaggio America. The first of those was delivered to Piaggio in mid-June and turned over to the owner to enter active service on June 25.

The September project, Larry Baker, Stevens’ vice president of operations, told AIN, was separate from the green series. “It was brought in for a cabin reconfiguration and some other mods, but was not part of the green series.” For the latter, he noted, besides performing factory updates and modifications, Stevens provided customized avionics as well as interior and exterior paint to conform to the specifications dictated by the end customer.

Last May, Donaldson was one of two Stevens Aviation locations named by Piaggio America as authorized service centers for the Avanti, the other being in Denver. Baker emphasized, “We can do avionics upgrading and structural modifications in Denver, but only Greenville has all the capabilities needed for completions.”

Mike Greco was recently appointed director of modifications at Donaldson. Greco’s more than 30 years in the field, Stevens Aviation pointed out, included serving as chief of maintenance for Butler Aviation and most recently for United Technologies Corp. Greco’s responsibilities involve management of the Donaldson interior and wood shops and overseeing and directing all avionics installations.