Gallery: Exploring Ascent Aviation’s 500-Acre Marana Facility

Ascent Aviation Services offers a wide variety of aircraft maintenance, storage and reclamation services from its 500-acre facility at Pinal County Airpark in Marana, Arizona. Aviation Week recently visited the facility and got a behind the scenes look at its operations as it prepares to introduce Boeing 777 passenger-to-freighter conversions.

Ascent has capacity to handle 10 parallel aircraft teardown lines with the ability to upscale as needed, and Chief Commercial Officer Scott Butler says it typically tears down between 70-100 aircraft per year. “We can ramp up pretty quickly if we need to, but right now, the demand hasn’t been quite there. It’s really been more demand on the heavy maintenance side than on reclamation or storage,” he says, noting that retirements have not been happening as quickly as the industry originally predicted.

An inside view of the aircraft from the previous slide. The cabin and cockpit have been almost completely stripped of parts.

A technician works on cataloguing parts underneath an aircraft.

Two technicians removing parts from an aircraft’s engine pylon and mount.

Inside the aircraft, Ascent has begun the process of disassembling the cabin and removing parts for reclamation.

The aircraft’s cockpit has also been stripped for parts. High-value items such as avionics are some of the first parts typically removed.

To provide shade for employees working outdoors in the desert sun, Ascent has repurposed aircraft fuselage cutouts into shady structures that feature shelving for harvested parts and other items.

This Boeing 777’s entire cockpit has been removed as the aircraft undergoes the reclamation process.

Window cutouts and open doors allow for air flow as this aircraft undergoes the reclamation process.

Parts harvested from aircraft teardowns are processed, packaged and shipped out from this building. Hundreds or even thousands of parts could be harvested from one aircraft, depending on a customer’s preferences.

An assortment of harvested parts that have been processed and tagged. Ascent’s facility also features temperature-controlled rooms for storage of components such as avionics.

Near the back of the property, Ascent offers short-term aircraft storage for up to six months or long-term storage for a year, which customers can renew as needed. About 200 of the facility’s 500 acres are reserved for aircraft storage. It can store approximately 400 aircraft.

Every seven days, stored aircraft must undergo a task such as a general visual inspection, and Ascent says stored aircraft are constantly being checked on regular timetables. Open parts of the aircraft, such as engines, are sealed with mylar to prevent dirt, insects or other foreign objects from causing damage. Due to high temperatures in the desert, Ascent also offers a venting option where forward and aft doors are opened during the day to prevent heat-related interior damage to the aircraft.

During the pandemic, Ascent’s storage area was nearly completely full of aircraft. Although this has thinned out, Butler notes that Ascent is now seeing some newer aircraft—such as Airbus A320neos—in storage due to Pratt & Whitney geared turbofan issues. The two Boeing 747SPs pictured here have been stored on site for quite some time and are currently for sale.

The bikes pictured here inside Ascent’s main hangar are used to help employees travel more easily across the 500-acre facility.

Technicians sign out tools from this machine, which enables Ascent to track each item and monitor usage.

Ascent’s 60,000 ft.² hangar is used primarily for widebody and narrowbody maintenance services. Although Ascent is starting to retool and prepare for newer generation aircraft, Butler notes that the company continues to see older generation aircraft going through heavy checks. “On the widebody side, we are seeing demand slow for [Boeing] 747s and even some of the passenger versions of 777s and [Airbus] A330s as newer aircraft come into play,” he says.

“We are seeing increased demand for [Boeing] 787 maintenance and we’re starting to see those first checks coming in on 737 MAXs and A320neos, so we’re starting to get our feet wet on those kinds of transitions or those kinds of heavy checks,” says Butler.

Ascent is preparing for more services on the Boeing 777. In September 2023 it was chosen by Israel Aerospace Industries to establish a passenger-to-freighter conversion site for 777-300ER aircraft. Pictured here is the area in which it will break ground on two new hangars on March 29. The 90,000 ft.² hangars will allow Ascent to run two lines of conversions simultaneously. It expects the first hangar to be completed in the third quarter and the second hangar to be completed by the end of the year. Butler says Ascent expects to start conversion work as early as July.

Another area in which Ascent is adding capabilities is landing gear overhauls. In response to growing demand for landing gear services, particularly for aircraft such as Boeing 737NGs, Ascent is working to expand its landing gear shop. The area behind the transparent curtain pictured above was previously leased to an external customer, but Ascent will soon take over the full space in this building.

According to Butler, Ascent is trying to manage its own supply chain in the Phoenix and Tucson area. “We are adding plating to the landing gear shop in order to control that supply chain ourselves and vertically integrate that into the company,” he says, noting that the expanded landing gear capabilities will create an ecosystem and marketplace in which customers can come in for maintenance and leave with green time.