King Aviation Mansfield Inc.
Owner: David V. Dinneen
Location: 265 Fruit St., Mansfield
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Type of Business: Flight services
Year Founded: 1991
Employees: 19 part time and full time
Annual Sales: WND
David V. Dinneen enjoys telling people how his father – in the midst of a
midlife crisis many years ago – decided he would do one of two things: take
karate lessons or learn to fly.
“He decided to fly and bought himself a plane,” Dinneen said, with a smile.
Dinneen, who just turned 40, finds pleasure in his father’s decision because
it heavily influenced his own career goals.
David V. Dinneen is owner of King Aviation Mansfield Inc., a flight school
located at the Mansfield Municipal Airport. He opened the business at the airport
in 1991 after working for a flight school owned by his father from 1979 to 1995
at the defunct Taunton Airport.
Aside from running King Aviation, Dinneen manages the Mansfield airport for
the town.
“The airport is self-sufficient,” said Dinneen. “It doesn’t cost the taxpayers
a cent. And all of its revenues go back into improvements.”
At his private venture, Dinneen and approximately 14 part-time and full-time
flight instructors introduce people to the world of aviation. Along with classes,
the company provides other aviation services like aerial photography.
The company has 13 aircraft, including four Cessna 172s, five Cessna 152s,
three Pipers and a twin engine Beechcraft Duchess. Dinneen said the company
trains about 125 students a year. Students can learn on two-seat and four-seat,
high-wing and low-wing planes.
“We get a range of people, from those who want to make it a career to people
who have the love and desire to learn how to fly and make it a hobby,” he explained.
The flying bug was something that bit Dinneen very early in life.
In 1979, he started working with his father at the Taunton Airport. By the
mid-1990s he had an opportunity to branch off from his father’s business, also
called King Aviation.
“I kept the name out of respect for the Taunton family who started the flight
training school in 1919 – 13 years after the Wright brothers started theirs,”
said Dinneen.
Dinneen’s younger sister, Kelley, also helps operate the business.
David Dinneen said there is not one type of aviation student. He said they
come from diverse backgrounds with different outcomes in mind.
He said one memorable student is a deaf man who had a desire to learn how
to fly. He went on to work as a mechanic for a major airline.
“We have former students who are flying airplanes all over the world today,”
he said. Meanwhile, there are many more who take to the sky for enjoyment solely.
“It always excites me when we can help someone obtain his or her goal,” he
said.
A big facet of Dinneen’s business is the day-to-day operation of the Mansfield
Municipal Airport. The airport – just north of Route 495 – occupies 230 acres
and has a 3,500-foot-long paved runway and a 2,300-foot-long grass runway.
The airport, located on the site of an old horse racing track, opened in the
late 1930s, and was privately owned until the Navy took it over as a training
site during World War II. After 14 months of government stewardship, the Navy
turned over the site to the town.
Dinneen’s five-year capital improvements plan for the airport includes an
expenditure of $5.2 million for replacing older buildings, repairing stretches
of pavement, and adding more hard-top ramp space for parking. Virtually all
of the costs for this work will be covered by state and federal funds.
A major part of running the airport is security. Dinneen says he is active
at Beacon Hill, helping lawmakers craft laws for security at the state’s 41
airports.
“It is very interesting understanding the security issue, not just here but
throughout the state,” he said.
While King Aviation has operated in Mansfield for 13 years, Dinneen still
considers it a “work in progress.”
“It’s always something different here … obviously it’s something I get tremendously
excited about and enjoy,” he said.
Dick Sherman is a contributing writer to PBN.
