Diamond Aircraft Canada Factory Tour

Your trip reports, airport experiences, etc. are welcome here.

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Rick
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Diamond Aircraft Canada Factory Tour

Post by Rick »

I had the pleasure of touring the Diamond factory in London, Ontario last Friday.

It was amazing to see DA20’s 40’s, and 42’s in all stages of assembly, from wings and fuselages being formed from carbon fiber cloth, to avionics and wiring harness installation, to painting and final assembly – it’s all done right there. Everyone I met, from the customer service people to the men and women building the planes, were all very friendly and patient with my millions of questions. What a wonderful experience. My only complaint – no photography is permitted in the factory, so I have no pictures to share. :(

Taxiing back to the factory, the first thing I noticed was the D-Jet parked in the back corner, partially hidden behind the dumpsters. No, they weren’t throwing it out (I asked), but they wouldn’t say much else about it except that it was an early prototype. There is a new-ish building right next to the factory that they said is for D-Jet assembly, but no tours. I did notice a couple of freshly-formed D-Jet fuselage halves laying alongside the DA40 fuselages during the factory tour. There is also a D-Jet simulator sitting in the lobby of the factory.

For those of you who have any interest at all in how a composite airplane is fabricated and assembled, I highly recommend making the trip!

I’ll try to provide more details as I remember them – got to get back to work now…
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Kai
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Re: Diamond Aircraft Canada Factory Tour

Post by Kai »

Rick, thanks for your undercover report, especially on the D-Jet.
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Rick
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Re: Diamond Aircraft Canada Factory Tour

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They sent me home with a bunch of goodies - cleaning kit, Diamond hat, key chain, calender, etc. and a bunch of papers on care and feeding of your DA40. I'll scan and post the papers later in case anyone is interested - I hadn't seen any of them before.

They said they now only build aircraft they have orders for, but the factory was very busy - lots of orders! They were working on one order for 20-some new DA20-C1's for somebody, and probably 10 or 12 DA40's in various stages of assembly. (Whoever buys 40.1147 - I have quite thoroughly inspected the insides of your new plane!). They are also doing the engine conversions on several DA42's at the moment, as well as some canopy retrofits for DA40's. Oh, I learned that the "bubble" canopy (they called it the "tall boy") was delivered on 40.849 and all subsequent 40's, so I guess that's how you can tell if you have one or not, unless you've done a retrofit.

Crossing the border was a non-event, especially entering Canada. Basically, you file your flight on eAPIS, and then call Canadian customs 800-number the day before you leave. When you land at the London airport, you call the 800-number again and they give you a secret number to write down. That's it - you're in Canada now!

Returning to the US, you file with eAPIS again, call your customs office of choice (I used Buffalo) before you take off. When I landed a KBUF, a customs officer came out to meet the plane, ask a few questions, looked at my passport, pilot license and medical certificate, then I was back in the US. Oh, and he did check my customs sticker (the $27.50 DTOPS decal).
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Moonshine
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Re: Diamond Aircraft Canada Factory Tour

Post by Moonshine »

Rick wrote:I'll scan and post the papers later in case anyone is interested - I hadn't seen any of them before.
Scanned goodies would be great! Thanks for offering :)
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HPNAviator
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Re: Diamond Aircraft Canada Factory Tour

Post by HPNAviator »

How significant is the difference between the old and new canopies?
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Rick
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Re: Diamond Aircraft Canada Factory Tour

Post by Rick »

HPNAviator wrote:How significant is the difference between the old and new canopies?
The first one I've ever seen was at the factory, and no good side-by-side to compare with, but I would guess you gain several inches. If you look at the top line of the canopy - the old canopy is flush with the to of the fuselage behind it, but the new canopy is humped up in the middle a bit higher than the GPS antennas.

Here are some pictures I pulled off Controler.com for comparison (new on top, old on the bottom):
Canopy comparison
Canopy comparison
Both.jpg (25.99 KiB) Viewed 4089 times
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Graham
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Re: Diamond Aircraft Canada Factory Tour

Post by Graham »

Rick wrote:Taxiing back to the factory, the first thing I noticed was the D-Jet parked in the back corner, partially hidden behind the dumpsters. No, they weren’t throwing it out (I asked), but they wouldn’t say much else about it except that it was an early prototype. There is a new-ish building right next to the factory that they said is for D-Jet assembly, but no tours. I did notice a couple of freshly-formed D-Jet fuselage halves laying alongside the DA40 fuselages during the factory tour. There is also a D-Jet simulator sitting in the lobby of the factory.
I was at the factory a month ago and had a tour around while work was being done on my plane. That day they were out doing engine run tests of the D-Jet and I had a tour of the D-Jet building. They had a couple of the prototypes in there, one a later version of the dumpster parked one and the one currently flying. Got to have a look inside and it was interesting to see the amount of monitoring equipment packed in there!

The part of the tour I found amazing was where they assemble all the wiring for the G1000. So many wires and so many connections, I am glad someone was not sleeping the day mine was assembled. The amount of quality checks to ensure it is all correct was reassuring.

I agree with Rick, well worth a tour.
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Re: Diamond Aircraft Canada Factory Tour

Post by Tim »

Great posts. Thanks for letting us know. I'm very happy that they are busy. Perhaps one day, they'll be busy with a new one for me :)
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Rick
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Re: Diamond Aircraft Canada Factory Tour

Post by Rick »

Here are the 3 documents the factory provided me during my visit. The contact sheet has names, phone numbers and email for Customer Support, Tech support, and Parts and Warranty people. The cleaning tips sum up many of the things that have been posted in other threads...
Attachments
Diamond_Cleaning_Tips-2.pdf
Diamond Exterior Cleaning Tips
(405.21 KiB) Downloaded 559 times
Diamond_Cleaning_Tips-3.pdf
Diamond Interior Cleaning Tips
(358.44 KiB) Downloaded 349 times
Diamond_Contact_Information.pdf
Diamond Canada - Contact Information
(73.21 KiB) Downloaded 300 times
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