Later this year Covington Aircraft is set to open a new engine maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) shop at an off-airport site between Goiânia and Anápolis in Brazil. As well as servicing engines, the company will hold a stock of spares. With the aim of continuing to grow operations after the initial launch, the center’s activities will focus primarily on support of the large number of Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A turbines in service in Brazil, flying in both agricultural and corporate sectors.

Headquartered in the Tulsa, Oklahoma, region, Covington Aircraft was founded in 1972 and has become a specialist in the PT6A family. It also performs MRO work on the Pratt & Whitney R-985 Wasp Junior and R-1340 Wasp radial piston engines that are still operated in significant numbers in the agricultural and warbird communities. The company is an authorized Pratt & Whitney Canada distributor and designated overhaul facility.

At its Goiânia site Covington will offer OEM-accredited services at competitive prices as a satellite of the Oklahoma business. As well as its central MRO facility the Goiânia shop will have mobile repair teams (MRTs) to meet the needs of operators in the field. In an area with a large agricultural aviation community the MRTs are a vital element to providing timely support.

Alongside the large number of PT6As Brazil has a surprising number of radial engines still flying, powering some vintage aircraft such as the T-6, and some older agricultural aircraft such as early Air Tractors and the Grumman Ag-Cat. While the Goiânia facility will not be equipped to overhaul these engines, it will hold some spares and provide engineering assistance to the mechanics who maintain them. Moreover, the facility will provide a ready-made conduit to streamline the return of radial engines to the Oklahoma facility for repair and overhaul if required.

Covington maintains a sizeable parts stock for the radials and offers reconditioned engines for sale. Some parts are newly manufactured, while the application of modern processes to the maintenance of engine types that were first produced in the mid-1920s has significantly reduced the cost of servicing and improved their reliability.