In 2006 Vitesse
purchased TXI Aviation on Dallas Love Field as an expansion of sales and maintenance support operations for its national jet shared ownership program. “The downturn in the economy, and some expansion plans that didn’t materialize, resulted in [Vitesse] divesting itself of the operation,” David Peaper, general manager of Vitesse Aviation, told AIN. “We announced the pending FBO and maintenance sale to Business Jet Center in June, after which Advantage Aviation Technologies contacted us about the landing-gear and hydraulic component overhaul portion of the business. We closed the Business jet Center deal on October 1 and the Advantage Aviation deal on November 12,” he said. Vitesse is still active in the charter business but has no physical location in Texas. According to David MacDonald, CEO of Cleburne, Texas-based Advantage Aviation Technologies, “Buying Vitesse Aviation adds a lot of aircraft gear work we didn’t do before; we’d only been doing Gulfstream gear repair. Vitesse was mainly a landing gear and hydraulic component overhaul facility and we are primarily a new manufacturing and repair development facility. The union of the two companies accents one another very well,” he said.