THE PROJECT
Cessna C208 Caravans are versatile, reliable planes that have been in production since the early ‘80s. Though they’re used for everything from cargo transport to bush travel, the particular Caravans we worked on for this project offered a special service: commercial skydiving trips. Generation Global provided three customized flooring sets for each of these aircraft as well as one new vinyl headlining. Since each plane was configured for skydiving, no individual seats were needed. Each cabin was instead lined with simple bench seats and hand holds.
GALLERY
Flooring pieces were crafted from heavy-duty Genflor (MW-200) Black Moonwalk, which was fitted with velcro that allowed for easy attachment to the floor. Each flooring set was precisely cut by a CNC laser cutter, which provides tremendous accuracy, ensuring a perfect fit. Since not all aircraft are the same, we often send a paper cut out in advance; this lets us verify a plane’s layout before cutting and measuring the actual floor material. In this case, we had to account for the special cutouts for the customized seat tracks on which the bench seats are mounted.
The single headlining we supplied was made from a handsome charcoal vinyl. That headlining was ribbed, allowing struts to be taken from the previous headlining and re-threaded through the enclosed loops on the seams. These struts were then secured to the airframe, holding the headlining in place. We installed three zipped areas onto the headlining, which offer easy access for engineers conducting maintenance checks on parts in the aircraft’s ceiling. The headlining can then be resecured with minimal interference.
THE CLIENT
Our client for this project was a CASA-Approved Aircraft maintenance provider located in Wollongong, Australia. They provide maintenance for several businesses, including a local skydiving company, and they service both piston engine aircraft and turbine-powered helicopters.
