Airframes Alaska takes off: aviation fabricator testing new three- and four-passenger Super Cub fuselage designs.

• Author: Resz, Heather A.
• Position: MANUFACTURING

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

It's rare to find a Piper P18 Super Cub in Alaska these days without some sort of modification--"bush wheels," a Cavanagh Door, Willow Mountain Ranch Floor, larger wing fuel tanks, extended main landing gear, or strengthened tail wheel springs.

To airmen worldwide these are known as "Alaska mods." Whether flying a Maule, Taylorcraft, Cessna, or Piper, modifications are often aimed at carrying bigger loads or taking off and landing in shorter distances off-airport.

Among Alaska's legendary mod men, no one was more prolific than F. Atlee Dodge who helped to pioneer the industry designing and gaining Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approval for small plane modifications.

A growing number of Alaskans earn a living these days rebuilding, modifying, repairing, or fabricating replacement parts to keep Alaska's fleet of weathered birds flying to remote airstrips, gravel bars, glaciers, and lakes ferrying people and cargo into the wilderness.

Airframes Alaska in Chugiak employs forty people full-time designing, engineering, testing, manufacturing, and selling most of the parts needed to rebuild a Super Cub from the data tag up, according to Sean McLaughlin, owner and general manager of Airframes Alaska. But Airframes Alaska is more than a "parts dealer." They manufacture a wide range of custom parts, and in some cases, they also build the machines to make them, he says.

Airframes Alaska has created business relationships with some of Alaska's mod designers that allow the company to build those modifications into its custom Super Cub frames.

"That guy sits at home and collects checks from us," McLaughlin says of the Willow Mountain Ranch Floor, which was conceived and designed in Alaska. "It's by far our most popular mod."

The Chugiak-based company was honored as Made In Alaska's 2015 Manufacturer of the Year and was the only Alaska manufacturer to earn a spot in the Inc. 5000 2015 list of fastest growing companies in the United States, coming in at Number 670 overall. With a three-year growth rate of 674 percent, the company was listed as the eleventh fastest growing manufacturer.

Good Ideas, Great Companies

Airframes Alaska was flat on its back in November 2011 when McLaughlin assumed ownership of the company in lieu of several months back rent.

"At that point, it was a couple of guys operating a $150,000 a year aviation welding business, which had gone out of business," he says. "We picked the company up off the floor...