Page 8 - Volume 11 Number 10

Mark Hicks, left, and Scott Oshman met when Hicks was buying his first Beechcraft King Air in 2015. Oshman opened his own business earlier this year and Hicks is an investor. Oshman Aviation Group is an aircraft dealership based
in North Texas providing aircraft sales, management and consulting services, specializing in Beechcraft King Airs and Cessna Citations.
Growing the business
Hicks estimates that in the three years since he started using aircraft for business, Hicks Lightning Protection has grown by 40 percent. Flying privately has allowed his team to communicate face-to-face more often and enabled them to get to more job site meetings, improving relationships with customers.
The company uses either the King Air or the Citation to take engineers, estimators and project managers to bid on jobs around the country, from as far west as Arizona to as far east as Virginia. “They’re usually in remote locations where flying commercial is just out of the question,” Hicks said.
Of Hicks Lightning Protection’s 300 hours flown last year, 250 were in the King Air. The majority of those King Air B200 flights were for travel from the main office in Dallas to satellite offices in Houston, Austin and San Antonio.
“We have managers at each location,” Hicks said. “The King Air is a good tool to get everyone together in the same location to have a meeting, and then everyone can be at home in their own beds that same night.”
Buying and selling King Airs
Scott Oshman met Hicks in 2015, when Hicks came to the dealer Oshman was working for to buy his first King Air.
“The first King Air 200 wasn’t necessarily a hard sell primarily because Mark had done his due diligence prior to our first meeting and he knew the strong capabilities of the aircraft,” said Oshman, a fellow Denton resident. “It became a matter
of pinpointing the right available on and off market options with the best value to fit his missions needs.”
Since then, the two have teamed up on each of Hicks’ acquisitions. His current B200 is a 1981 model loaded with Raisbeck options including Four-Blade Quiet Turbofan Propellers, Enhanced Performance Leading Edges, Dual Aft Body Strakes and a Ram Air Recovery System. In March 2016, Hicks worked through Oshman to completely refurbish the interior and paint with the same scheme he applied to a 2005 King Air 350 he acquired in January 2016.
“The 2005 King Air 350 was a low-time airplane with Pro Line avionics and the engines had never been overhauled before, which to us was a good value,” Oshman said. “It had Raisbeck strakes and wing lockers, satellite phones, dual FMS, and a TCAS II that is about a $100,000 add-on. It had a good pedigree from a corporate company in Japan and was just coming off fresh inspections from Beechcraft maintenance. It was a good clean airplane that allowed Mark to make it his own with new paint and interior.”
Hicks outfitted the plane to his own style, with the idea he’d be flying it for years.
“In Texas, we like to do things western, so we made the paint scheme tans and browns,” Hicks said. “I call the interior ‘rustic with a modern flair.’ The seats are distressed leather, alligator skin for the sidewalls, real dark woods and the carpet is tan and white zebra print. It sounds crazy but it looks very good together.”
It looked so good, in fact, that Hicks used the design for his B200 and ended up with the chance to flip the 350. A buyer fell in love with the airplane, increasing his initial offer earlier this year to make Hicks an offer
6 • KING AIR MAGAZINE
OCTOBER 2017