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Tour of Northstar Aerospace, Inc.
Duluth, MN
Our Air Force Association Quarterly Dinner was hosted by Northstar Aerospace, which included a great guided tour. Some pretty fancy work is going on here. They manufacture the seats and many of the internal machined parts for Cirrus Design aircraft.
September 10, 2008

One of the big CNC machines on the main floor. Some of the individual components take over two hours to mill. They mill to a tolerance of 0.0001", which is just 2.54 microns! Our tour guide (I forget his name), showing some of the raw aircraft grade aluminum stock and a finished component. Some of their dashboard instrument frames lose over 95 percent of their mass in the intricate milling process.
He said the aluminum bar stock is about $6.00 per pound, and the milling chips are worth just pennies per pound. That's why something so lightweight is so darned expensive. The powdercoat paint area.
  They machine some pretty darn small parts!
Even the raw aluminum bar stock is pretty to look at. Some finished Cirrus Design aircraft seats. I asked how much each one costs, and he said roughly $6500.00. That's for the passenger seats. The two crew seats are even more elaborate.
Some pre-assembled seat base frames. Seat frames ready to be stuffed with pre-cut foam and upholstered in expensive Italian leather.
  These are the control yolk assemblies, basically the steering column. They are engineered to have precisely 1 pound of tension of push or pull.
On the right are two crew seats, with airbags built into the harnesses. The frame of a crew seat. They are designed to withstand 28 G's of force.
A welding station.  
 
Copyright © 2008 Tony Rogers