Visiting Sky Paragliders

February 6^th-7^th, 2024

It was less than a ten-minute walk from my pension to Sky Paragliders’ main building.  What a contrast from Macpara’s location.  This building, which was designed specifically for the production of paragliders, was situated in a small, grassy field about a hundred meters from the railroad that runs through town.  It reminded me a bit of another paragliding company, Skyman/Independence, that I visited in October in southern Germany.

Sky Headquarters:

I was greeted by Monika, the main person that I communicate with over emails with regards to ordering product etc.  She grew up in the area and studied English translation and has been with the company for a few years.  I have enjoyed working with her over the last number of years and it was nice to finally meet her in person.

The entrance to the offices:

Monika took me over to another office where there were four computer workstations.  The other person that I have had email conversations with is Vita, who is the international marketing and sales manager.  Vita is tall, sporting a beard and is around 50 years old.  I would be spending the majority of the next two days with him.  At one of the other workstations was a young French masters student named Remy who was on a one-month work term at Sky.

 

After some small chat, Vita took me for a tour around the facilities with Remy tagging along since he had only been at the company for 3-4 days at this point.  The production was on the ground floor and Vita explained how the raw materials go in one door, work their way around the production area in a counterclockwise direction and then come out the door that was behind us, before being shipped off around the world.

Walking through the door, the first thing we saw was a similar CNC cutting machine as I saw at Macpara the day before but there was also a laser cutting CNC machine, for the thinner fabrics.  It was an impressive machine.  Next there were a few big tables for sorting the fabric pieces, checking for any defects against a backlit tabletop and for packing reserve parachutes.

The CNC cutting machine:

The CNC laser cutter:

The main area of the production was filled with women working on various types of sewing machines.  Paragliders cost between $3000-6000 and new pilots often wonder why.  Well part of it is that it takes between 3-4 weeks of sewing to construct a new wing…they can have between 374 to 1063 individual pieces!

The main sewing area:

One woman is responsible for all of the sewing of a single paraglider:

A fancy machine to cut lines to an exact length:

This is a testing machine for the strength of harnesses:

They put harnesses on this heavy, body-like frame and then pull the harness apart, seeing how much force it can withstand.

At the other end of the building, through another doorway, was the area where the lines are connected to the paragliders and then the “trim”, the length of the lines, are tested to make sure that the paraglider will fly properly.  A few women use an industrial blower to inflate the glider so they can inspect the inside construction of the wing.  I had mentioned to Vita that I wanted to learn about trimming a glider in order to re-trim used gliders back in Canada.  I ended up spending time with a lady who walked me through the process of installing a whole set of lines on a paraglider, which normally takes her about an hour.  I was impressed with her speed and accuracy.  Even though I was putting lines on one side of the glider while she did the other, I think I might have been slowing her down!

Installing lines and trim checking:

Checking the internal ribs of a wing:

Looking inside a paraglider:

In the early afternoon, I returned to that area again and spent some time watching the two ladies check the trim of the glider that we had worked on in the morning.  I thought it was interesting that they just use a tape measure mounted on a square metal rod that is connected to a wall on either side.  I thought that they would use a laser measurer, but this seemed to work well and the ladies were, not surprisingly, very quick at it.

That evening, I met up with the French student Remy, at the same restaurant that I had been to the night before as the food was decent (apart from the meal that I chose the night before), good beer, a nice atmosphere and was less than a five-minute walk from where I was staying.  Remy, in his early twenties, is a very intelligent and interesting guy so it was a nice way to finish the day.

The next morning, I returned to the Sky headquarters, but early, at 7 am.  Vita, Remy and I were going to drive some 30 kilometers to their other production building where the harnesses are made.  I asked Vita why, if they designed the headquarters building specifically for their production needs of making paragliders, that they did not include the ability to also produce the harnesses there.  There were a few reasons, but one main point in his answer was that most of the production team are skilled seamstresses, who are all women, and a small town like Frydlant just doesn’t have enough skilled workers to meet their demand…makes sense.

The other production facility:

More cutting machines, this one for thicker material.

An automated stitching machine:

Harnesses nearing completion:

Vita showing me a heavy duty, hydraulic-driven sewing machine.

They make their own t-shirts too.

Many finished harnesses, ready to be shipped over to the headquarters.

We toured around the facilities for an hour or so before walking over to another building where there were some crazy, complicated and expensive looking machines which produce the nylon cloth which is used for their reserve parachutes.  I sell more Sky reserves than any of my other manufacturers because they are the lightest (of standard reserves) for the lowest price…and now I see why.  Most other manufacturers buy their nylon from a third party supplier.  Vita had warned us before we entered the building that it was going to be super loud inside, but it wasn’t.  The machines were idle.  Vita seemed a bit disappointed that the one lady, who pretty much single-handedly runs the place, was not around.  He said that she was incredibly skilled, and patient.  He showed us how she has to thread individual strands of nylon, thinner than a piece of hair, into one of probably a thousand different flat metal rods with a needle-like hole in them.  It takes her about seven days to set it all up…wow!

The crazy nylon making machine.

Hard to see in this picture, but this are the hundreds of metal rods that each have an individual line of nylon threaded through.

The last building we entered houses a company that builds super sleek, 2-seater ultralight planes.  The company is called Ellipse and one of the main guys behind it is married to one of Sky’s managers and I believe he used to work at Sky, but this is now his main passion.  I don’t fly engines, but I have to admit that these were pretty sexy, and expensive, flying machines!

Ultralights in production.

This one has a Rotax engine installed.

Nice, and complicated, cockpit.

Returning to the headquarters, I spent an hour with Kate, the reserve packing guru who can pack up to 40 reserves in a day.  She hardly spoke English, but I learned some great tips and tricks from her, while having fun and sharing some smiles and high-fives.  I pack reserves back at the flight school and what I learned will definitely improve my quality and speed of repacks. Thanks Kate.

Kate showing her skills at packing a reserve:

Me and Kate with a finished reserve:

That evening, Vita, Remy and I met at the same restaurant (my fourth visit to the place in for nights!) for a few drinks.  It was nice to get to know Vita a bit more, outside of the paragliding business.  He’s a relatively big hockey fan, which isn’t too surprising as the Czech Republic is a hockey country, but he impressed me with how much he knew about the NHL.

Evening discussions over a beer with Remy and Vita.

It was a fun evening and a great way to finish off my three-day paragliding supplier visits.  It had definitely been worth coming out to eastern Czechia.