When AVweb visited the Cirrus factory last summer, it was in the process of reorganizing to ramp up production of the new Cirrus SF50 VisionJet. In this detailed video, AVweb's Paul Bertorelli reports on how the factory builds its popular piston and jet aircraft.
Paul is the best aviation commentator. Great information delivered with his characteristic “just right” humor.
The world needs more Paul Bertorelli.
"the glue you werent supposed to sniff" :D Made my day. Great video, thank you.
I grew up in the 60's and 70's building model cars/airplanes. I still remember "Testors model cement" !
@@edadan Kinda makes me want to go out and buy a plastic model kit and a tube of that glue just to remember/re-live my childhood. Then There's Hoppes #9...oh baby! Thumbs-up if you know Hoppes #9 :-)
For Cirrus employees, that would be one big ass tube of glue. o_O
Paul, you are a true professional! Great insight into how Cirrus's are made! Thanks for putting this together!
Great video. Many thanks for posting.
Hi Paul, have watched this a few times now and find it fascinating. Be great to see you and Larry to a series of visiting other manufacturers and OEM's production facilities across the whole of GA. Best Jason.
You picked THE nice day to be in Duluth, well done! Great video, fun to learn about that side of the manufacturing process. Sure is a whole lot quieter that Cessna, Beach or Piper!
Jaime, right on brother!!! I love the idea of having a parachute in the aircraft, I actually thought that would be a great idea when I was 12 and flying with my Dad every weekend in a Cessne 172. (back in 1972 over LA County CA)
NICE TOUR, I LOVED SEEING ALL THE PROCESSING, ESPECIALLY THE PAINT SIDE.! BEAUTIFUL AIRCRAFT VIDEOS, KEEP THEM COMING.!!
Great video and I applaud Cirrus for allowing cameras into the factory for us to get a glimpse into the manufacturing process. Very impressive!
They can do it for now until their ChiCom boss stops the practice. The video crew has a minder just like when they film in ChiCom land.
Don't blame the Chinese. They can purchase an american aircraft manufacture and copy the production ten fold in China and allow the US market to go bankrupt due to egregious product liability rulings. Americans did this to themselves and they (you) deserve to mortgage your life and pay $600,000-$1.3m to china for your four seat piston airplane. Should have voted NO on everyone who has held office in California and New York and the DNC since the 1960s.
5:11 - "Looks I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue..." Really interesting video, Paul, as I learned about the continuous improvement efforts of building aircraft.
Clarity, brevity & great informative Video Channel ! Cheers !
Thank you for this great video!
Most informative and entertaining video! I just wish I could afford one of those beauties.
THANK YOU FOR UPLOADING IT.
Fascinating to see a successful, low-volume, America-based company. I toured Hartzell in September: they have gone CNC/robotic/machining-center crazy, with humans doing the cleanup, assembly, and painting. Their composite blade division is a separate, younger-employee division that is slowly eating aluminum's lunch...
Pete Kuhns Chinese owned though
AMAZING... Thanks for the tour ';-)
2:01 guy nailed that shot
Interesante las formas de querer optimizar la fabricación y la fluidez del trabajo en la fábrica de aviones. ¡¡Me gustó mucho!!.
Excellent presentation 👏👏👌
Fuselages built in similar manner to Airfix plastic kits- two complete haves glued together. Great method. Only other plane built like this was the De Havilland Mosquito, but made of plywood and balsa composite. Very strong, till the casein glue turned to mush in the tropics.
This was very interesting and informative
im a big fan of the vision jet, very nice
Wonderful Video
I love the blue on the Vision
Years ago I worked as a temp for a company that made folding step stools for Walmart. Me, being the new guy, they gave me an old WWII era riveting machine which was twice as fast as the brand new air-hydraulic riveters. Other workers begged me to slow down because there was now way they could do the same volume of work I did but the company would increase quotas if they saw me doing well with an older machine.
Imagine how much more you would learn about GA and how much you would laugh, if you could fly with Paul on a weekend cross country/camping trip. Would be one of the best x-country trips of a life time, for any GA Pilot!👍🇺🇸
Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.
Amazing. Best wishes to Cirrus employees. I hope they pay you well!
I was thinking the same after spending the first 3 minutes of the video of some manager describing how he is trying to get more efficiency. For a worker that usually means more work in less time for the same pay . . .
Great inside look at a great plane!
Christopher Sorensen Great plane NO, high selling YES
Why are you under the impression that this isn't a great plane?
I agree!! Out of any of the fixed wing and Rotorcraft I have flown, the 2017 SR20 G6 is my FAVORITE! Its beautiful, Smooth, Fast, has great Xc capability, and the Cirrus Perspective Avionics System (G1000 MFD/PFD) is just wonderful!!!
What happened to Cirrus's video On How it's Made? That was a great video 1 hour long and very informative about 7 years ago.
In 1973 I toured the Piper factory in Vero Beach the line moved forward 1 station every 45 minutes. 12 Cherokees every day.
The major difference between this and my F3A models is only size and a functional cockpit. Amazing stuff.
Dam that vision is a sexy jet
Excellent
Reminded me of the story of the Willow Run - B24 - factory in Michigan. The plant opened in 1942, Henry Ford was in charge, stumbled out of the gate with some hiccups, think 5-10 planes a month until mid-1943 then ...... one plane every hour, 24/7
Nice Video
I've been watching your videos for some time now, but when I looked at your channel this morning my account wasn't subscribed! Don't know if it somehow glitched, or if I'm that blonde. Either way I'm glad to be a subscriber again!
I love it, i wish i can help you guys.
you are doing all right, love the sob
Aeronautics always interesting
I was part of the team that helped to bring LEAN Manufacturing to Boeing's 747 Final Assembly Line, in 1997. Back then, Boring was said to be living a 'Profitless Prosperity' in that they were building over 600 aircraft per year but made no money. During this time we had a 4 Takt Time, meaning every 4 a 747 went out the door. Needless to say LEAN Manufacturing was imperative. Thanks for showing your LEAN Manufacturing in this impressive aircraft final assembly arena. One question, why do you still move the aircraft versus putting the aircraft on a moving line?
Mooi vliegtuig😊
Would love to see an update to this video as Paul mentioned at the end. How does the production line look now?
Love the channel, but you guys SERIOUSLY need to check your camera focus
hi Paul. how in the world did you get access to film in there?! AVweb must have some Pull up in Duluth 👍😉 thank you for the tour. i’m in Japanese automotive manufacturing, so i was amazed that Cirrus opened their doors to you. i assume that there were “can’t film here” areas, but that was quite a peek into Cirrus’s manufacturing. most joints keep their production ops screwed down tighter than a floozie’s miniskirt, so i was quite engaged in the content! ...and you seemed to be on your best behavior there. good on ya & thanks again for the inside look you gave us.
kind of strikes me as inspired marketing...
As a German, sorry for nitpicking. "Takt" is not German for "baton", it's German for "measure" as in the interval of time in a music piece. So the little stick a conductor waves around in front of the orchestra to set the pace is called a "Taktstock" (Stock = stick) which is I think where the misunderstanding with the baton comes from. Deriving from the music expression, "Takt" is then in general used as: Precise interval of time.
Tachometer
Metronome@@roofman1200
If Cirrus keeps it's aircraft prices reasonable and good product support, it should be in the forefront of light aircraft sales!!
Audio is pulsating between left and right channels?
nice
It sounds like Cirrus is incorporating the LEAN process flow, these guys are serious about production; yeah-hoo!
Jeffrey Galeski You are right. They seem to implement some steps and rules from the Toyota Production System.
Kaizen was the term I learned back in the day. The spirit is the same, continuous improvement.
Yes and it seems that their process is more of a job shop environment. Their improvements plateau... could call goldratt consulting, study up on TOC and or hire synchrono.com
“Line balance” Getting rid of underperforming employees.
Does this company hire welders? I was thinking about applying to this company in Duluth once I graduate from the tech.
One things for sure, when/if I ever decide to own a Cirrus, I would most certainly dedicate at least 5+ hours, with a CFI that has 500+ hrs in a Cirrus, and practice all aspects of slow speed flight/landing configuration/slow speed stalls, in an effort to better anticipate or have a more keen awareness of an on coming stall, more so, than had the dedicated 5+ hours had not been implemented. Hope that makes sense. Happy/Safe Flying!👍🇺🇸
As far as I know, Cirrus provides courses to all Cirrus pilots. If you buy a new Cirrus (or a second hand), they will give you ground training and 10+ hours flight training with a CFI, focused on the transition from any other plane to the SR. All you need is a Cirrus and the money for the fuel. My boss here in Brazil is buying his third Cirrus and I am going to take the course again, for the third time. There is no such thing as too much knowledge!
@@aboriani Yes, learn what the Cirrus airfoil/wing can and cannot do. Then fly it ALWAYS within the flight envelope and enjoy it forever.
Bravi !
As someone who has worked on brand new Cirrus SRs, they definitely put quantity over quality these days. Some stuff I'm surprised gets through the quality control programme.
Really? That was my impression throughout the video, numbers and weekly rates of production instead of quality talk and improvement of the platform against upcoming LSAs and Experimentals.
cool
So if I understand the presentation correctly Cirrus has 600 Vision Jets on order and currently cannot build more than 100 per year (approx. two planes per week). That's a nice problem to have but I'm not sure that they are being aggressive enough in setting their new production goals. They need to increase production to a least 12 planes a week in order to meet the current demand of the 600 plane backlog. That requires them to increase production to at least 10 more planes a week! That's a tall order that going to require many additional employees and larger factory space. I wish them good luck during this ambitious expansion.
i want the vision jet and ill buy it soon.
i've just flown one across the pond, faultless.
Management is always looking to be more efficient, as they should be. What astounds me is that they think adding more management to yell at workers to speed up is the typical solution.
Why is the interior carpeting put together with so much velcro though? Working on Cirrus and doing annuals is fun, but man all the velcro jeez.
one day ill buy the cirrus vision jet g2+
Beautiful plane. But I still like the center yoke better
I'd want to be PIC on the right, to have right-hand stick and left hand for engine management.
Beautiful plane! But I still cant ignore the fact (if im not mistaken) that the reason the plane has a chute is because it couldn't get a spin certification without it. It needed chute for the cert
Actually, it's the other way around. The FAA decided Cirrus didn't need the spin cert BECAUSE of the parachute.
why they don't cover the tires during painting, very sorry.
Cirrus sf50 should have payload capacity of 800 kg with a range of 2000 km with full load
Not what I expected and hoped for. BUYERS are not at all interested in your balanced lines and tact time or how fast you can build them. This is what factory owners are interested in, bottom line profits. Buyers are interested in the quality of the product plus a factory tour that gives them confidence in the product. I interviewed and was offered a job here back in 1998 as a manufacturing engineer but decided not to accept. Don't get my comments wrong to the buyers perspective as this is a very top line factory, just the video message is wrong for this audience. Great products and superb designs.
With a backlog of 600 units, they should be talking to other manufacturers for help. A lot of those orders can be lost to competitors who can deliver faster.
"Takt" is not German for baton, that would be "Taktstock". "Takt" is German for bar or measure in musical notation. It can also be used in German in the sense in which it is used here for a regular subdivision of time outside music. 4-stroke engines are also called "4-Takt" in German.
Takt is the German word for the baton that an orchestra conductor uses to regulate the tempo of the music. Takt time may be thought of as a measurable “beat time,” “rate time” or “heartbeat.” In Lean, takt time is the rate at which a finished product needs to be completed in order to meet customer demand. From the SixSigma Lean documentation.
Repeating it or citing a documentation about a quality management methodology doesn't change the meaning of a German word. Take my word for it, I'm a German native speaker and a musician. The German word for a conductor's baton is "Taktstock" (de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taktstock), it is never abbreviated to "Takt", it may be abbreviated to "Stock" (stick). Takt can mean all the other things they cite, though, besides "bar" and "measure" in music, but not "baton".
OK. What does Volksjäger stand for?
@@kradius2169: People hunter.
Sorry, your simple translation is not correct...not People Hunter, (plural) and what that suggests(!), but PeopleS Hunter as in possessive, of the people...analogous to Volkswagon being a wagon of the people. Cheers
It looks and sounds great, little dolphins, friendly air crafts from Cirrus. Why can't start a couple more facilities to meet the demand, lot of people switch to other brands due to delay. I think the more you produce the more you can sell. Good luck.
Nice bird
I wich that i could build my very own
If I ever get gifted with loads of dough Rey me voslei, I will definitely be getting one.
that's a lycoming engine hanging from the hoist. have they changed engines in their recips ?
The sr20 uses a Lycoming 390. They changed that in 2017 or 16. The sr22 still uses the tcm io550 and tsio 550.
its just small planes you should do more.
das ist mein Traum in deses firma arbeiten.
motorisaçao e fabricaçao propia
Sir I want air line job
I would love if they one day put a turboprop instead of those bloated lawnmower engines inside.
Id love to see cirrus a SR22T as a tail dragger and PT6 as a option..
The Rolls Royce general aviation Turbine engine [ M250 with 450shp] would be perfect for the Cirrus Sr22. It could be their flagship top of line model. Smooth and fast.
Dan TheMan that would be a decent option. Especially like a c30/40 roughly 100lbs less weight and 2x the power. With slightly wider wings the range could be similar.. to a piston powered sr22.
@@randerson752 Yes a slight extension of span at the tips would allow a reduced powersetting at cruise for range while maintaining the speed. Being able to do home to LasVegas non-stop at FL170 would be very nice.
The interesting thing is that Cirrus does not have a better safety record than the rest of general aviation. The parachute didn't help out at all. I think the presence of a parachute actually makes the plane a little more dangerous (for some people). They get really brave and fly in to situations that they wouldn't normally try if they didn't have the chute. Also...the parachute can only be deployed under 135 knots. The planes cruise a LOT faster than that!
Yeah, JFK Jr could've been saved from his own folly... to go do it again.
Many videos these days are not in focus. That's the case in this video too.
I wish I was wealthy. I would buy two and donate one.
The tube of glue, don't sniff it. Got it.😉
Stupid question: I WILL LOVE to buy something like this, but they are so expensive. Has any company tried to do planes like cars and lower the cost?
Light sport aircraft do. Government regs, as in all things, increase cost, complexity and time required... or prevent new things from being made at all.
Great video, I hope at some point new airplanes will be affordable to blue collar citizens.
They would be, but for government regulations and support of the oligopoly against competition.
I liked the video, but I'm disturbed by corporate worrying more about proficiency than quality. Don't get me wrong..... They need to be proficient if they are going to remain profitable. I just hope things don't get overlooked, or "slide" because of it.
LIne balance = sackings
Any mention of Chicom ownership in this piece and in particular the ownership being the state owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China and that AICC is a Chicom defense contractor? Inquiring GA folk might be interested who owns what in their next 22 or 400 buy....?
Who builds them. Airframes, engines, props, instruments - all built by American employees putting money in their pockets and back into our economy.
Very interesting. Good video. But if they are very successful, why are they trying to stay in a confined space? if they have a 7 year back log they must lose a lot of orders. That's russian lada wait times, our lives are too short for that. Last I checked, warehouse space is not that expensive and if they are moving 100-200 million dollar products a year, that cost should be negligible. Also I wonder if you couldn't do an aircraft hull as a single piece composite, applying it inside two mold sides, using a teardrop hull shape such that the monotonous compound curve surfaces are rigid as just a shell without any bulkheads. Use of sandwiching for rigidity if needed but I'm guessing it wont be with carbon fiber, especially once pressurized. Having to glue together two sides when you could have continuous fiber all the way around is an unpleasing compromise of the extreme strength of composites. It's also hard to beat weight wise. I would also aggressively pursue making the SR size aircraft a sleeker pressurized twin jet at quarter the weight. Imagine an SR23 at 250kg empty with two small turbofan jets at the back, pressurized hull going 700km/h at FL450 with better fuel economy than an SR22. And lower price. 4 seats and a lav at the back with one time use inserts and wet wipes. No plumbing. Most times you don't need a classic bus config jet. Runway to runway autopilot, lean back and enjoy the quiet of a fast rear engine jet at high altitude. It would wipe clean the GA market.
but. YOU DO NOT WANT TO RUSH QUALITY.
make me a vision jet g2+
1:19 pft
Only rich people can afford these
Sounded like business profit seminar.
Did anyone else feel like with increased production comes lack in quality? I understand businesses want to make money, but there’s no way quality will be the same
Often increased production rates mean higher quality. If an item moves to the next station with a quality issue that disrupts the next step, then it can cause chaos. That's why production is slowly ramped up, quality issues are removed, the process is improved and streamlined, and the production line speeds up.
148 lives saved. But if you can pop the chute isnt it because your plane failed? I do remember being up flying in 50 year old Cessnas wishing I had a chute so don't misunderstand.
Not usually. Most accidents in GA are pilot error...flying into clouds and getting disorientated, stalling, etc.
BumHaven how about a video about the times chutes were used? That would be really interesting.
Love Cirrus. After watching this vid now not so sure. I would expect to see a much more professional looking team of techs. These guys look like they were throwing together , well I'm not sure what but certainly not aircraft.
Im happy for their success against all odds and the FAA. Even if it took an act of congress to make a safe space for new aircraft manufactures. But Cirrus aircraft are not at all exiting to me. They get my blood pumping like most people enjoy seeing another motorhome blocking an On-ramp or Tractor Trailer parking spot. Not to say its not a quality product. It is. Its probably one of the most Gucci machines made in America. Up there with Earth Roamer or Daniel Defense. Though just not anywhere near as cool. They went all out with small, high aspect ratio wing, laminar flow, high wing loading, and big engines. But it can barely get out of its own way and utterly fails to out-climb even a housefly who finds herself caught in a thermal updraft. Seriously, the climb gradient of these turds alone gives me the willies. Not, its not much worse climb rate per minute as a Cessna 172. But its twice the distance covered for less total gain in altitude.
' how come the airplane company did not use policy clothes codes for all workers... why workers uses caps on the heads and sloppy clothes at work
At 4:47 I’m shocked to see “safety” so far down the list... I would have expected to see safety in the number one spot... things that make you go hummmm..... If they want to maximize production they should look into getting a few more of those KUKA robots. I work with them on a daily basis and talk about shaving off human time! Those robots can do anything you ask them to do...without sick days, smoke breaks or lunch time..
Agree maybe using them to paint the aircraft? They surely should be able to do so.
It seems it is more about the health & safety of the workforce..
Safety is never the number one priority in anything. If it was, you would go sit in a cave and suck your thumb. The only time safety is listed as the number one priority is when the leadership is lying. So, go out to your airplane, sit in the cockpit, and say, safety is my number one priority. Not flying, not having fun, just safety. Then get out of your plane and go sit in your cave.