If you’re looking to make your childhood dreams of taking to the skies a reality, Bill Mavencamp Jr. can help.
The owner and president of St. Cloud Aviation and Wright Aero Inc. has a lifetime of experience around aircraft. His father was a pilot and Mavencamp got his pilot license in high school. The skill has carried him through his career in the Army as an aircraft mechanic, as a flight instructor and now as part of full-service airplane business.
In addition to flight instruction, his two businesses at St. Cloud Regional Airport offer airplane repair and inspection, repair and inspection of aircraft instruments and radios, aircraft storage and refueling, chartered flights and aircraft rental, among other services.
“I just like looking down at the ground and the terrain,” Mavencamp told St. Cloud LIVE recently. “I’ve flown as far as Paris a couple times, and you get to meet a lot of interesting people.
“It’s an interesting occupation. It’s not for everybody. … You have to have a drive for it.”
He’s in his mid-70s and looking to the future.
“I do fly, not as much as I used to. I used to fly about 1,000 hours a year on average. So I’ve got about 42,000 hours in,” Mavencamp said. “I haven’t killed myself. I came close a couple times, but I made it.”
He hopes to retire or sell the company, but he hasn’t found the right opportunity yet. His son is a pilot but doesn’t like running the day-to-day operations.
It’s an expensive proposition: the hangars, the equipment needed to handle and fuel large aircraft, the parts they have on hand, the midsized planes they have available for charter flights and the smaller planes they rent out for flight instruction.
“This took me 40-some years to accumulate this stuff,” Mavencamp said.
St. Cloud Aviation has been around since the ‘70s, but Mavencamp and Robert Shadduck purchased it in 1988. Mavencamp had previously started Wright Aero Inc. doing flight instruction. The companies played a big part in St. Cloud State University’s former aviation program, which was dissolved more than a decade ago.
Today, about 15-20% of his business is flight training. Another 15-20% is storage of airplanes, and about 35% is refueling. The remainder is airplane and radio maintenance and inspection, Mavencamp said.
While St. Cloud is a small airport, his businesses stays busy. He says, on average, his team will pump 400,000 gallons of fuel into smaller aircraft, from five gallons to 800 gallons at a time. They’ll also pump another 300,000 gallons servicing the commercial passenger airplanes of Allegiant Air, which flies out of St. Cloud airport.
The company employs about six flight instructors and about 30 people in support services, like mechanics and refueling. It takes a big team to staff: they’re open from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days a week with refueling services. They do service Allergiant Air when they’re running routes, with fuel, de-icing services and more. Those planes may take as much as 3,000 gallons of fuel that they can pump in about 15 minutes, Mavencamp said.
The company helps about 70 people get their pilot licenses per year. Each license takes at least 50 hours of flying, which will probably take three or four months to complete and about $9,000-10,000.
There’s a lot to learn.
“You got rules and regulations, you got meteorology You got to learn about navigation. And of course, nowadays, there’s a lot of electronic navigation involved. Aircraft aerodynamics and performance: What makes an airplane fly? And why do they quit? Why do we crash?” Mavencamp said.
But not everyone who takes flight lessons in St. Cloud is looking to work for Delta Airlines, flying a 747.
About a third of his students are taking lessons to become commercial pilots. Another third do it purely as a hobby, for recreation. The remaining third tends to be people who learn for business purposes, flying themselves or a few passengers to business meetings where it’s more efficient to fly.
Taking on a pilot shortage
The number of licensed pilots St. Cloud Aviation is helping turn out has been increasing recently, Mavencamp said. The U.S. is facing a pilot shortage as a large number of pilots hit the mandatory retirement age of 65 in coming years, Mavencamp said.
And it isn’t a position that’s easy to fill. Experience is everything with flying. Pilots need a minimum of 50 hours to become licensed, more to become a flight instructor, a minimum of 250 hours to become a commercial pilot and 1,500 hours to fly for major airlines hauling cargo or passengers.
And it’s costly. Mavencamp estimates it would cost as much as $80,000 to $100,000 to get enough hours to become a flight instructor.
So it will take a few years to start turning out pilots that can take over the top pilot jobs. It does pay well.
Airplane mechanics are also in demand and make a good living. St. Cloud Technical and Community College is preparing to launch a training program in the fall of 2026.
https://www.stcloudlive.com/business/passion-for-flying-carries-through-owner-of-st-cloud-aviation