McWhinneys spread wings with KingAir

If the skies over Northern Colorado seem busier — and noisier — than they have been in years past, it’s because … well, they are.

The corporate aircraft fleet at Fort Collins-Loveland Airport has been a-growing. And within the past few weeks, it grew again.

McWhinney Enterprises, developers of the Centerra project that the Eye and The Group Inc.’s Larry Kendall and the governor and everybody else has been calling the “epicenter” of economic development in Northern Colorado, has spread its own wings over the backyard airport.

A spiffy new twin-engine Beechcraft KingAir prop-jet now frees Chad and Troy McWhinney and their team from the inconvenience of commercial airline schedules.

The McWhinney brothers downplay the purchase. In fact, they don’t want to talk about it much at all.

“It just made sense for us to have a plane in Loveland,” Chad McWhinney said, therewith closing the topic.

In a way, the McWhinneys are by comparison slumming it with their modest KingAir. Other players in the regional economy have made bigger, flashier — and louder — statements with their corporate wings.

Take ConAgra Beef Co.’s Challenger jet, or Hach Co.’s twin-engine Cessna Citation jet. Or Advance Energy Industries’ Citation. Or Goldco Inc.’s jet. The fleet is growing.

What with all the interest in the epicenter, the McWhinneys do a lot of traveling. Courting users of the 3,000-acre development that wants to be home to the next big-time employers in Northern Colorado is easier when a comfy, high-speed, go-anywhere airplane is virtually on the brothers’ doorstep.

“Send the plane,” the Eye imagines one or the other saying when a hot prospect turns up.

The full-time plane and pilot (no time share for these guys) does cut the Centerra crowd out of one of the bennies available to other air travelers.

No more frequent-flier miles.

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