Mark Henley Aircraft Mechanic & Lead Pilot - Aeroshell Aerobatic Team

In the last week of July each year, hundreds of thousands of aviation enthusiasts gather at Wittman airport in the town of Oshkosh, WI to attend the annual Experimental Aviation Association (EAA) AirVenture Oshkosh — dubbed “The World’s Greatest Aviation Celebration.” Daily afternoon airshows are a big part of AirVenture. The Aeroshell Aerobatic Team has been a regular performer at AirVenture for years, thrilling attendees as the group of four North American Aviation T-6 Texans flies formation acrobatic maneuvers overhead. Mark Henley is an aircraft mechanic and the pilot of the lead aircraft in the Aeroshell Aerobatic team. D.O.M. magazine traveled to his remote farm in Alabama last May to sit down with him and learn about his journey to where he is today.

Early Introduction to Aviation

Mark’s dad, Tom, bought his first airplane, a Tri-Pacer, to learn to fly. Mark and his twin brother Alan were five years old at the time. Tom owned an automotive parts and service company, and once he started to fly he quickly realized how valuable a business tool it could be able to travel using general aviation. He surrounded himself with airplanes from that time on. He purchased several other aircraft over the years to support his business, including a Comanche, a Commander 520 and an Apache. Then in the 1970s, in addition to the aircraft he had bought to support his business, Tom bought himself a Pacer. By that time, Mark and his twin were old enough to fly, and would often fly with their dad in the Pacer. Tom later developed an interest in warbirds, and in 1973 purchased what is now Alan’s T-6 Texan. The aircraft was running but needed lots of work. He also bought a J-3 Cub and a Stearman “project” that Mark wanted to help work on.

“We started working on the Stearman at home,” Mark shares. “It was a basket case. We tried to figure out what everything was and where it fit. After about three or four years, we had it on its wheels, but we weren’t even sure we had all the parts. We ended up taking it to another guy to have it rebuilt.”

Learning The Basics

Mark worked for his dad during the summers while attending college. After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in marketing, Mark went to work for his dad full time to run the service department. He had the opportunity to attend to a wide variety of technical schools to advance his skills including magneto, diesel fuel injection, ignition, Briggs & Stratton, transmission and small engines. He attended Kohler generator school to learn how a generator worked and how to make electricity.

“All those things were applicable to not only what I was doing at work, but also on the aircraft,” shares Mark. “Local A&Ps would do the work on our aircraft, but there were a lot of cases where I knew more about it than they did. They would pull an alternator off and change it, or pull a magneto off and change it. If you brought me the magneto off a Cessna for example, I could open it up, check all the components, repair it and make it work. Needless to say, we did a lot of work on our aircraft.”

Around this time, Alan got interested in building his own airplane. He bought a Pitts Special project airplane, and through the experience of building that aircraft and the time spent working alongside the A&Ps working on the other aircraft the family owned, he was able to apply to take his tests for his A&P based on his experience. Alan successfully passed the tests and got his mechanics certificate with airframe and powerplant ratings.

“Then we were able to do our own maintenance,” Mark says. “Alan and I would work on the aircraft, and when we got done working on it, he could sign it off.”

Flip this Plane

The Henley family soon developed their own “Flip this Plane” business. “My dad had always liked to tinker and rebuild stuff,” Mark tells D.O.M. magazine. “So once we had quite a bit of experience under our belts, we started buying airplanes with the idea of fixing them up and then selling them. We would buy a basket case, restore it, and turn around and sell it. We bought a Cessna 195 that was in parts and pieces. The engine had a busted case and the fuselage spar was corroded out. After four years, we had a nice flying airplane. We flew it for several years before selling it.”

The Henleys also did a similar restoration on a DC-3. They also restored an S2F, a Navy torpedo bomber that had been sitting for 13 years. That aircraft had never had a civilian airworthiness certificate, so the team did all of the inspections, did all the certification and got the airworthiness issued.

Mark was also helping maintain several other aircraft along the way, both for the business and for personal use. “We had an Aero Commander as a company airplane, and I did a lot of the maintenance on it,” he shares. “We had Stearmans and T-6s to maintain. That’s where I gained all my practical experience. Although my brother was here at the farm maintaining the aircraft, I was still working at our company. My time was built up on evenings, weekends and holidays. I eventually went to the FAA to get permission to take my tests and got my A&P.”

Business Experience Pays Off

While working up to getting his A&P, Mark was still working at his dad’s business, advancing to higher levels of responsibility. Although Alan was working full time maintaining aircraft and was getting more hands-on experience, Mark was still attending training courses in conjunction with working at the service department.

“He was here working around the airplanes, but I was in town working at the shop,” says Mark. “I was fortunate to go to all the schools that he was not able to go to. When it came to component repair, that was more my forte. Alan was more knowledgeable regarding FAA regulations, while I knew more about how things work.

“The ability to work on machines and diagnose problems and fix them is a skill,” Mark continues. “Whether you are working on an alternator on a car or on an airplane, you need to be able to diagnose what the problem is and know how to properly repair it. To be a good mechanic, you need to understand the system and what makes it work. Unfortunately, a lot of people are just parts changers.”

Management Lessons

The service department that Mark ran had 15 employees and he earned their respect. “A manager that just sits in an office and tells people what to do can have a hard time getting respect from their employees,” he says. “What I would do is I would dig in and work on stuff in the shop right alongside them. The guys respected that while I still ran the operation, I wasn’t afraid to get in there and tear an engine down or fix an alternator or rebuild a starter. It all came down to working as a team to satisfy the customers. When things got backed up, I was right there beside them.”

Mark became the president of the company when his father passed away in 1999.

Mark’s T-6

Mark bought his T-6 in 1988. It had been sold to the French Air Force as a lend lease in the early 1950s. It was built up as an artillery spotter, and saw action in the French Algerian war in North Africa. Mark says that though they have been patched, there are still some bullet holes in it.

Some Ag operators in Louisiana bought Mark’s T-6 along with a batch of 12 surplus aircraft in the late 1960s.  “They wanted the engines and props to use on their planes, and just pushed the airframes back in the weeds,” he says. “Over the next 20 years, they were purchased one by one and were rebuilt. A guy from Greenwood, Miss., bought this airplane. He and another guy put it back together, but never got it to run — it never flew. I bought it from them, got a ferry permit and brought it back to the farm. I went through everything and rebuilt it. I got the FAA to issue an airworthiness certificate for it. I started flying it and doing airshows with it.”

Evolution of the Aeroshell Team

Steve Guftason and Alan started doing a two-ship aerobatic performance in the early 1980s. Mark had a Stearman and his dad Tom had a P-51 that they would take to airshows.

 “We all were performing at airshows just for the fun of it,” Mark shares. “If they could pay some of our expenses, that would be just that much better. But a lot of these places were mom-and-pop airshows. They might want a Stearman, a T-6, a Pitts Special or other aircraft. But once they got a T-6 performer, if there were three or four guys with T-6s that wanted to perform, they were out of luck. Alan and Steve found was that they could book more airshows if they did a two-ship performance. People liked the formation flying. They named the team the North American Aerobatic Team. Later, they added Ben Cunningham out of Jackson, Miss. The team flew together for 12 years. Then Gene McNealy joined them. They would rotate so each one of them didn’t have to fly at each air show. In 1997, Cunningham decided to quit the team, and Mark was asked to join. He painted his T-6 to match and started flying with the team.

McNealy was instrumental in the transition of the team to the Aeroshell Aerobatic team. McNealy saw opportunities to push the team to have a bigger schedule and to get sponsors. Through his work, the team made a deal with Aeroshell to become the team’s primary sponsor. They expanded the team to a four-ship formation. In 2003, during the anniversary of flight, the team did 31 shows. That year, Mark realized that the rigor of the show schedule, in addition to the rigor of running his business, was more than he could handle. He would either have to stop flying with the team or sell the business. He decided to sell the business and has been flying with the team full time ever since.

Each team member is responsible for maintaining their own airplane. They are all A&P mechanics. Four years ago, Alan fell and broke his neck in an accident at home. The team hired another pilot, Bryan Regan, who had flown for the Red Barons for 16 years. He flies Alan’s T-6, and Mark maintains both his and Alan’s airplanes.

Each team member wears different hats. McNealy handles the selling and marketing side of the business. Guftason handles the event organization, which is especially important at the two big annual shows – Oshkosh and Sun n’ Fun. Mark is the business manager, keeping the books and maintaining all of the contracts. Mark also says that Bruce Turner is an important part of the team.

“Bruce is kind of a jack of all trades,” Mark shares. “He is a pilot. He doesn’t fly for the team, but he is our ground coordinator for Oshkosh and Sun n’ Fun. When we go to Oshkosh, we have an extremely busy schedule between personal appearances, flying the airshows, working the Aeroshell booth each day and doing sponsor rides. Without Bruce, we couldn’t get it done. He is a valuable part of the team.”

Maintenance issues

Mark shares that the T-6 only has a couple of recurring ADs, and the biggest one is for corrosion. “You need to keep an eye on corrosion on the WWII era planes,” he shares. “In the rush to production for the war effort, manufacturers at that time didn’t properly extrude some of the parts, and you see a lot of intergranular corrosion. If you have a warbird and you are not using ACF-50 or other anti-corrosive product, you are just gambling the life of your airplane.”

Another thing Mark keeps a close eye on is the propeller. “I have my propellers inspected and repaired as necessary every two years,” he says. “Formation flying is the hardest thing you can put a propeller through. Every time you do a power change, it changes the pitch of a propeller. If you make five power changes during a maneuver, you change that blade angle five times. The counterweight bolts are constantly being flexed back and forth. You are subjecting the propeller to hours and hours of use in the course of a couple of minutes. We pay close attention to the counterweights and the little giant seal.”

Mark also ensures the propellers are properly balanced. “We use an ACES Systems balancer for our props,” he says. “If you put the amount of time on these airplanes that we do without balancing the propellers, it would create a tremendous amount of additional work with regards to chafing and component damage. The engine cowling also chafes much more when the propeller is not balanced.”

Mark changes his W120 Aeroshell oil religiously every 50 hours. “A lot of our flying is in the summer when it is hot,” he says. “If we go to an airshow where the temperature is 95 degrees, that oil is getting worked very hard.”

Replacement parts

Since the Aeroshell team is flying just about every weekend during the summer, Mark can’t afford to risk not having an airplane down for maintenance. He stocks a lot of replacement parts in his hangar. He buys his airframe parts mostly from Dallas-based Lance Aircraft. Mark relies on Covington Aircraft Engines for engine parts and supplies.

One of the challenges with flying a T-6 in airshows around the country is that if a part breaks down, chances are high the local parts distributor isn’t going to have a replacement available right away. To handle this, Mark carries a supply of tools and parts with him to each show. “A typical mechanic has his toolbox that he rolls up to the airplane when he is ready to work,” says Mark. “I carry the tools that I maintain my aircraft with in a black bag. I can do an engine change with the tools I carry. I also carry an assortment of hardware and seal kits for every hydraulic component on the aircraft.”

In addition, Mark has an inventory of parts at the airport back home ready to ship out if need be. “I keep most components I would need in my hangar. They are on shelves, yellow-tagged and boxed ready for shipment. The boxes are clearly labeled as to what each part in it is. If anything happens on the road, I have friends I can call at midnight to go out to my hangar. I can tell them to get the box labeled T-6 fuel pump and have them FedEx it to me.

“Someone once told me a long time ago that if you find a job that you love, you’ll never work another day in your life,” says Mark. “That’s kind of what I did. I sold my business so that I could fly full time. I ended up turning my hobby into a business. The problem is that I used to go do my hobby to get away from my business. Now my hobby is my business. Still, I have to pinch myself every now and then when I am at an airshow to remind myself that I am actually at work. It definitely beats an 8-to-5 job, hands down!” 

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