We owe 100% of the awesomeness of the name "sparkchasers" to co-founder, Bill Betts. Bill went to avionics school at Enterprise State Community College in Ozark, Alabama, where one of his instructors was a former Navy aviation electronics technician, also known as, a Sparkchaser.  When Bill and Mark decided to start a new FAA repair station, they struggled to come up with a good name for the business, until Bill remembered what the Navy called his old instructor...a Sparkchaser.  The name just stuck and today, well, we think it's awesome!

The short answer is Yes! We see quite a few Cirrus airplanes around the shop.  If you need regular maintenance, an annual or upgrades on your Cirrus, we can help.  We have the Cirrus manuals, rigging tools, and a couple of pilots who are current on all Cirrus airframes if we need to fly with you or do a test flight.

Sparkchasers is commited to flight safety first.  We want you to have innovative systems and all the conveniences we can offer, but only if we can achieve it without compromising flight safety.  Sparkchasers has a 30 year record of zero FAA reported incidents and we plan to continue that.  Still don't believe we are the ones you should trust?  Give us a call and we'll give you customers to contact so you get their point of view.

We do not offer maintenance on Robinson helicopters anymore, but we can do avionics installs on Robinson helicopters. For maintenance, we recommend going to a shop that has Robinson certified mechanics.  

Sparkchasers has installed & repaired solutions from just about every avionics manufacturer over the past 30 years. This is far from a comprehensive list, but here is just a sampling of what we work on weekly:

• Appareo (Stratus)
• Aspen
• Avidyne
• Garmin
• Genesys Aerosystems (S-TEC)
• Honeywell (Bendix/King)
• L3 Technologies (Lynx)
• PS Engineering

ADS-B is certainly a headline type topic for a significant sector of the general aviation market and the FAA does have a 2020 mandate for equipage.  ADS-B, or Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast, is part of the FAA NexGen program and is also a current FAA mandate for some aircraft owners.  The FAA is rolling out ADS-B to increase efficiency and safety in Class A, B, C and some class E airspaces.  Aircraft must be ADS-B Out compliant by January 1, 2020 to fly in ADS-B designation airspace.  

Additionally, aircraft owners have the option of increasing their situational awareness while flying by installing a solution that also has ADS-B In, so the aircraft can receive the location of other traffic and also weather services while in the cockpit.  With ADS-B In & Out equipped aircraft, for the first time pilots see what ATC controllers see: displays showing other aircraft in the sky and also hazardous weather and terrain. Pilots also get important flight information, such as, temporary flight restrictions.  

With thousands of aircraft still needing to be equipped, each day you wait increases the challenges and uncertainty of getting your aircraft compliant by the 2020 requirement. If you start today, Sparkchasers can help you avoid the potential of scheduling backlogs, part shortages, installation price increases and the inability to fly to key destinations.  Contact Sparkchasers today for more information.