Lange Factory Visit, December 20007

I (Dave Nadler) visited the Lange factory in December 2007. Lange had a very tough year, but has now been recapitalized and is again operating normally with new owners and a new company structure.

I took a few photos during my visit, Enjoy !

People at Lange.

Dave Nadler, Gregor Kunsemüller (new CFO), and Andor Holtsmark (engineer).

Andor and Janos (Engineer on sustainer system).

A few photos of Antares 20E number E41 (under construction for a customer in Northwest USA).

First photo shows the detail of the canopy frame fitting. Note that the crush-zone nose-cone has already been installed.

Here's a bit of the cockpit interior. The control systems have been installed.

Next the improved fillet at the base of the vertical tail. The molds weren't yet updated for this detail when the fuselage shells for E41 were produced.

Here Andor is pointing to E41's wings.

The tips are ready to be cut off E41's wings.

Main Workshop

Lange has an excellent purpose-built facility on the Zweibruecken airport. There are two connected buildings, one for engineering and administration offices, and the other for work areas and inventory. Here are a couple of views looking across the main workshop.
Here's an 18T wing in the mold, nearing readiness for joining. Note the joint near the root end of the mold and the "short root" segment of the mold; there is a longer root mold for producing the 20E wing.

Final Assembly Hall

I didn't find a ladder to take a picture of this area, sorry ! There were two 20E's nearing completion(E38 and E39), and also the third 18T (photo below) a few days from test-flight. This 18T is equipped with an enormous flight computer called Triadis Altair Vega with which I'm not familiar.

For more information on the Antares 20E and the Antares 18S/18T, see:
www.Nadler.com
Lange web site