New Paint Hangar Gives MRO Flexibility for Larger Aircraft & Elaborate Designs

With Duncan Aviation for 40 years, Doug Bohac had seen the installation of five Aircraft Paint Booths from Global Finishing Solutions (GFS) at three different facilities. So when time came to again expand their paint operation, sticking with GFS was an easy decision.

“We’re familiar with them and have been happy with the way the booths operate,” said Bohac, Lincoln Paint Manager of Duncan Aviation, the world’s largest privately owned maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) provider for business jets.

A 2026 expansion at Duncan Aviation’s sprawling facility in Lincoln, Nebraska — including a new 32,500-square-foot, dual-bay paint hangar from GFS that features upgraded climate controls, energy efficient systems and expanded capabilities — gives the MRO the flexibility to support larger aircraft and create more intricate paint designs.

Two crossdraft bays, which replaced smaller hangars that were in rough shape, have stark white walls and ceilings for better color quality control during paint application, air showers for further contamination control, and the ability to recirculate as much as 80 percent of the booth’s heat during curing. An adjacent 9,000-square-foot storage and support area includes an Aircraft Parts Booth from GFS, for finishing flaps and thrust reversers.

“The lighting in here is tremendous,” Bohac said. “Everything being new, I am anticipating we will get some clean, quality paint jobs out of here.”

Bohac had just started with Duncan Aviation when they acquired their first GFS paint booth, in Lincoln in 1990. He was there for the addition of GFS booths in Lincoln, in the early 2000s; in Battle Creek, Michigan, in 2007; in Lincoln in 2012; and in Provo, Utah, in 2019. Duncan Aviation paints 250 aircraft a year across all three locations, including about 105 in Lincoln.

This $25 million project — designed and engineered by Tectonic Management Group and built by Hausmann Construction — gives Duncan Aviation enough space to accommodate some of the largest business jets, such as the Bombardier Global 7500, Dassault Falcon 10X and Gulfstream G650. Plus, with two bays, lead times are shortened on drop-in work like paint touchups and registration number changes.

“With this new booth, we’re not adding capacity. We’re adding flexibility,” Bohac said. “The airplanes have gotten larger. That was the main purpose — so we could handle requests for the larger aircraft. Our paint complex in Lincoln is now complete and ranks top notch in the world.”