Sky Paragliders have just moved into their new factory and office complex and to mark the occasion both Tim King and myself (as well as 160 other people) were invited to the opening to discover what goes into designing and manufacturing paragliders and to party until the early hours.
Our tour started with an explanation of the design process and the difference between reworking an existing design and a new design. When a manufacturer develops a new design, it is quite common to make some small improvements to it and to repackage it after a year or two. This is relatively easy and inexpensive. Often manufacturers will take innovations from other gliders in their range (or even those developed by a competitor) and enhance an existing design with them.
We then had a talk about the Sky designs; as we’d been discussing the repackaging of a competitors DHV 2 glider, it was contrasted with the Brontes. We were taken through the design process, and the advanced computer design package was demonstrated. It was surprising how easily design changes could be made. The data files produced by the software are completely compatible with the computer controlled marking and cutting machine. This machine would first load the cloth, and then mark up the panels with the cutting reference and checking points. Once this process had been completed, the cloth was cut. The entire process took about 40 minutes and if required, 4 thicknesses of cloth could be processed at once! One of the other guests asked what happened before Sky had the machine, or if it was out of order for any length of time. Martin Nemec, the director of the company showed us the Stencil library that could be used to cut the panels. This is the system in use by the some paraglider factories. In order to make the production of the glider panels cut in this way cost effective, 30 or 40 thicknesses had to be cut at a time. It offers very little flexibility, and the production of proto type designs is horribly expensive.
Before we moved onto the assembly room floor, we were shown the paperwork that accompanied every single item produced in the factory from bum bags to gliders. It gave a full history of all materials and manufacturing processes used, and meant that if there was ever a problem or query about an item, its full production history was known. Once an item had been finished and dispatched, the records were duplicated onto the computer database for quick access and cross-referencing. We also had a brief chat about materials and how the latest Porcher fabrics are now impregnated rather than coated. This allows the use of lighter weight fabrics, which have better durability. Sky are really impressed with the new impregnated fabrics. They supply the local airport with wind socks and previously, even with heavy cloths, the windsock would be in tatters after a few months. We were shown one made of the new impregnated Porcher. It had been in continuous service for over a year and still looked new!
The assembly room floor is where the gliders are stitched together. This is also where the reserves are put together, and again these are made for other companies. If you open up your reserve you might be surprised to find a Sky label even though you didn’t buy a sky reserve. The heavier cloth items like harnesses and flight decks were put together in a different section of the assembly room on bigger machines.
The next part of the factory was where the line sets were made up. Before they are attached to the glider, there is a blower that inflates four or five cells at a time and a visual inspection is made of the inside, checking for stitching defects. Once all the lines are attached and tension applied (I think it was 15 kg), an electronic measuring device is used to check the line lengths. It is accurate to two tenths of a millimetre. The error on each line is recorded on the gliders paperwork. DHV require that the error is less than 10 mm, but Sky reject any line that is out by more than 5 mm (the man in charge of this section told us that it was very rare to find errors of more than 2 mm).
That wasn’t quite the end of the process. As a final check, every glider is then taken outside and inflated before being dispatched.
After the tour things really started to get messy with a never-ending stream of drink, food, and a band. The enthusiastic element was carted off at midnight to Ostrava, a town that is famed throughout the Czech Republic for Friday and Saturday nights out (we now understand where the rep came from!).