How Diamond Builds Composite Aircraft 

Wow, Paul, thank you for that video. Best factory tour I have ever taken. Kudos to all the Diamond reps who shared their expertise. My positive impression of Diamond went through the roof after watching that video. My favorite was that guy Jeff Smallwood. He made me feel confident to put my entire family aboard one of “his” planes. Actually, I’d still want a chute in my next plane, but Diamond sure impressed me with their “process” pronounced in their Canadian way.

All the knowledge and materials involved At low volume tells one why an airplane is so expensive😉

I live 40 minutes from the Diamond plant in London, Ontario and always wanted to see inside it. Now I have.

I absolutely loved the "How to build a wing" with all its annotations! It was so much fun to watch

Paul is my favorite reporter in aviation, always interesting, informative, and of course entertaining. Thanks

This is a fantastic walkthrough. Thank you so much for taking the time to share this with us and thanks to Diamond for allowing us to see so much behind the scenes.

After seeing how much scrutiny and fine attention to detail goes into these airplanes, I begin to appreciate why they cost a million bucks.

I was lucky enough to have flown the DA20, DA40 and DA42 during my training and always enjoyed flying them, so great watching a video on how they're built.

I'm about to start my MEI training in a DA-42NG. Dig it! Thanks for the vid!

That was a spectacular video! So interesting to see a plane made, especially a composite one.

One of the most interesting videos from this channel. Thank you.

I weekly fly those aircrafts and it was amazing vid to actually look how those composite processes were done on these aircrafts. Now I know a fun fact that the nose gear is not completely centered

Great episode thanks! What an amazing history the factory has! Nicely done graphics! They look like they are building bix Airfix planes! I'm not a flyer but now I'm convinced that if I ever wanted a plane it would be from Diamond!

Lovely aircraft....thanks Paul and AV web team.

Hey Sally! Looking good in the video!! Keep those Harnesses coming!! 👍😊

Great review and tour Paul! I’ve got around 100 hours in a da40 and it’s a wonderful airplane to fly. My short list also includes a da62 (maybe one day).

12:30..... measuring efficiency is not about keeping quality consistent or at a high level. It is about pushing the employees to work as fast as they can with as few mistakes as possible. Often times that leads to a lower quality product being pushed out the door because people are watching the "efficiency clock".

A wonderful factory. It is the same backward as glider. I am currently considering purchasing a DA62. It was very helpful.

Excellent presentation. Thank you for sharing!

Another Excellent Production Paul !! Great Job !!!

All of these people were proper presenters, well executed plant tour

Thanks, Paul, for coming up to Ontario for this video. Your Canadian fans appreciate it. :-)

Awesome video! Really get to understand how Diamond has been so successful.

A very nice presentation Paul. I am so delighted with my DA62 - just brilliant, best in class and, above all, SAFE !!

Is very amazing, see these process of fabrication of Diamond.

AVweb hits it out of the park with this show!

That was fascinating thanks for posting this.

Really well done video! Super impressed.

Love the channel , specially to see how its made. Wonderful vid.

Cool Vid, and hello from Production at Diamond Austria ✈️♦️♥️🍺

Thanks for the video. Very resourceful🙏

This is quite interesting. It is good to see the quality control checks that are involved. Composites are light weight but there should be testing in place to ensure the quality of the manufacturing process.

That Was A Great Presentation!

Great video. Very informative and nicely put together.

Very interesting report from the factory

You think all of the people watching this won't notice 3:43? . Look at the lower left. 🤣🤣🤣 . I love it though. Very informative, and Diamond makes good aircraft.

Top-notch animation and graphics.

Wow , thx for the tour

The comments at the bottom left of the blueprint part were great! Lol 😂 Great video, awesome content!

such an amazing video. thanks a lot

You can see why some manufacturers prefer metal. Composite manufacturing looks very involved to me yet guess modern performance expectation demands its use. I never knew there was a machine that loaded resin onto fibre sheet on demand and just thought they bought it in pre-preged and kept it in a fridge. What was most noticeable to me was the lack of robots which makes a nice change to see in an advanced manufacturing facility.

Great vid, more like this please!

Thanks, excellent show

This is fantastic... Thanks diamond

I learned to fly in a 1998 DA20. Still one of the most fun, nimble planes I have flown.

Out standing videos 👍👍👍😊 thanks for the info and the idea to building these are great 👍👍 take care stay safe down there 👍 everyone.

How I would love to own one of those beautiful aircraft..

Fantastic airplanes, I flew them for 20 years, hopefully this company will be more profitable in future.

Thank you Paul I love your videos and I hope one day you will get that red da62

You make awesome videos. Well done!

Hi, AVweb! I'm not a pilot, but I enjoy watching your videos! Do a review of the Flaris LAR01 - those single jets are so cool!

Great work!

I really enjoyed that, thanks

I figured out who Paul reminds me of. It’s Lt. Dangle from Reno 911. I can’t stop thinking about this now. You’re welcome.

Awesome as usual great work I enjoy your videos! And hummer in other places.

cool no vacuum infusion, just vac bagging or prepreg. I love that idea. so simple yet elegant. that vac bagging is for consolidation only so it so simple

That was plain awesome very interesting

That animation tho! Love it. And I want one of those fiber impregnating machines!

I have seen these aircraft in Vancouver and thought they looked somewhat fragile with the thin fuselage but I am definitely mistaken after watching this video. What an impressive airplane.

Excellent video Paul. I really enjoyed the editing, hidden humor, visual aids, and process information. In particular, it was great to learn about the anti-static chemical they spray on the wings during the paint process. That , and how they test for PASS/FAIL of that static electricity wicking system. I always thought they must have had some kind of metallic mesh woven into the composite, or something. Learning about the avionics wiring and test equipment was also very interesting. Keep up the good work ! If I could choose the next topic, I would select cockpit window technology. How has the testing process ( chicken cannons ) , materials, and construction of the forward windows evolved over the years? Can they withstand bird strikes any better ?? Are they stronger and lighter ? Is it all about the same as of a particular date ? Curious minds want to know......:)

Wow, I really like this one

Interesting they put static wicks on these. I have a pipistrel and it is all composite, no wicks and no issues with static buildup. Nice looking factory, great video.

hey, nice video, and I can see many people I worked with in 2016-2017, was exhausting but good then, best regards from Germany

DA-62 is my dream airplane.

Wow, that wire stripping machine is straight from heaven.

Now that was awesom

great video!!!!!!!!!

GREAT coverage of the process... Can you imagine that detail in the Ford Factory making B-24s?

I'd love to have a DA-62!

The DA40 is a really great airplane to fly.

I hit subscribe because of this video. Amazing work!

That's what's my lovely works .... creative

Awesome animations, really simplifies the understanding of the whole process. Great video overall, thank you for posting this.

Fantastic

You've got the best job in the world.

Hey Paul, a brief reference to how composite glider manufacturers have developed all of the molded parts construction from the 1960's on would have been helpful. Modern gliders are made in the very same way and were the forerunners of this impressive technology.

DA62 is my dream!

Good luck with what you are doing....personally for the rest of my life i will be trusting oldschool analog teck .I must say i would very much like a pair of supercub wings built with carbon fiber. Very cool built in CAN.guys.

Very good

excelente trabajo

Hello and thank you for this excellent video. There is something wrong here or i dont get it. Check the wing laminate starting 2:38. It shows that they add peel ply between the laminate layers. Why is that ? They dont want the layers to adhere together ?

Outstanding 👍😎🌏🇦🇺

This was astonishing: I would have expected automation and robotics at some stages, but no, it's hand-crafting all the way. Also answered a question I posted elsewhere: can they be delivered in containers, instead of ferrying, with wings/engines off and the whole craft in a container and assembled at destination. The answer seems to be no because the wings are really "fused" with the fuselage.

Paul, I would be interested to see a comparison of Diamond and Cirrus in terms of safety. Both are makers of high-tech composite light aircraft, and both pride themselves on safety. Cirrus takes the approach of having an airframe parachute, optional FIKI, and very sophisticated avionics, while Diamond simply focuses on building a plane with very safe handling characteristics and a very crashworthy cabin.

if they add a cabin pressurization on the da62 it will be perfect and will be the ultimate GA piston aircraft money can buy.

4:19 Workers jamming to hot tunes lmao

It was a very revealing plant tour, though I'm sure some of their "secret sauce" was edited out. It seems like a nice environment to work in, but I thought I'd see more masks considering the "sanding, a lot of sanding".

Just had a random thought. If Diamond made a small GA Helicopter while keeping the same style as their fixed wing aircraft including the T tail, it would be very beautiful.

I learned to fly on a Diamond DA-20.

Hello all, Regarding the wing manufacturing i understand that first the lower wing skin is layed up, compacted using vacuum bag and precured. Then the ribs and spar are placed and again precured, then the upper skin is laid up and precured. Doesn't the upper skin also need compaction? Also if the upper and lower skin are seperate don't they form a rough surface or a joining mark on the wing skin which is not desirable?

¡¡¡Qué hermosa fábrica!!!... Si fabricaron el mosquito.... ¡¡¡deben ser muuuuy buenas máquinas!!!.

Great video. I'm kind of surprised there is so much fiberglass and wet layup. I would have thought there would be more prepreg in huge autoclaves.. but I guess that would be too expensive..

Спасибо !!! Давно мечтаю построить самолёт и ... успеть хотя бы разок полетать.

Looks very good. Lots of money cost to be purchased

Wing-rockin'... aero-documentary!

Oh...MY...GAWD...12:05. As a former 2M Tech aboard a navy ship, this makes me extremely jelly

is a welded aluminium tank safer than a blow-molded HDPE one that they use in the automotive industry? it feel that having a big elongation at break is an advantage.

Do they still make motorgliders?

There's a reason the SR22 has a fatal accident rate 5x's and sky high insurance rates over the DA-40. And it has a parachute for the entire plane. Can you say side sticks? The DA-40 is about a perfect as you can get, maybe a jet chute option?

Is Paul a licensed journalist in Canada? That's a great report.