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The factory was resurrected for a second life
V. Mačiulis, who has been running a Lithuanian glider factory for 11 years, has been involved with the glider for more than four decades. He started as a student, then during his studies he practiced at the Prienai Experimental Sports Aviation Factory and worked as a programmer. During the Soviet era, as a professional pilot, he represented the Soviet Union in world and European championships.
However, his sports career did not last long. After Lithuania declared its independence, she decided to leave the team with several athletes on the same day, so she was left without a job. Then V. Mačiulis founded the Termiko company, repairing sports planes at that time and selling Russian planes to the West. Currently, the planes arriving here are repaired not only from Lithuania, but also from countries outside the Atlantic.
The factory, located in the neighborhood 11 years ago, was on the verge of bankruptcy, so the interlocutor, along with several other enthusiasts, bought the shares and revived it. Then came the Sportinė Aviacija ir Ko company, which is still run by V. Mačiulis.
The company, which has been in business for more than 50 years, manufactures gliders with electric motors. The Lithuanians were the first in the world to make a glider, with which it is possible not only to land, but also to take off.
Gliders manufactured by the company “Sport Aviation and Ko” fly in Western Europe, the Republic of South Africa, the United States, Canada, Australia, South America, Japan.
Fallen Orders 3–4 times
According to V. Mačiulis, the company, which created a new glider model, received many orders last year, two or more years in advance. However, this year, due to the coronavirus crisis, orders have been reduced three to four times, 12 to 14 months in advance, and what lies ahead is unknown. It is true that the company also does other jobs, such as the repair of aircraft and the manufacture of glider transport trailers.
“Previously, there were two orders a month, now one in two months. Wondering what will happen in a year. As orders decreased, so did working capital. (…) Nobody buys toys during the famine. Such Maybe you need to repair the roof of the house and invest 100 thousand in sports. Not everyone can use Eur “, – the interlocutor mentions the possible reason for the decrease in orders.
The factory boss says that he is considering changing the direction of the activity: repairing the planes, but there is a problem of additional costs, because it is not so easy to take planes thousands of kilometers away.
The interlocutor adds that the state should pay some attention to aviation, because a small company cannot compete with the West – the German aviation industry.
There are 5 glider factories in the world, three of them in Germany, one in the Czech Republic and the other in the Republic of South Africa. All of them, as they say, are serious Lithuanian competitors.
There is work, just no one to work for
True, the plant could produce more gliders, about 20 a year, but the company is facing a shortage of specialists.
“We have a job, there is no one to work for. (…) Old teams, not young ones, went looking for happiness, there is a lack of money,” says V. Mačiulis.
More than 30 years ago, the factory was located in two buildings and employed about 600 people, including 150 designers. Currently, one of the buildings where the main activity was developed has been abandoned and the company has 45 employees, including 6 designers.
“Some of the workers have fled the region, the need for gliders has decreased, but we manufacture as many gliders in series as 600 workers,” he says.
No Lithuanian educational institution provides the specialist training necessary for a glider factory. Some engineers are said to be developed by the company itself.
When asked if people don’t want to work, V. Mačiulis says they simply don’t exist. The factory is mostly made by hand, the workers of the machine cannot be replaced: “The workshop employs 8 to 10 people, only a few under 40 years old, for others the pension is not for the mountains. Difficult situation. I don’t know how the production will go. We cannot hire robots. If we mass-produce, we could automate some processes. “
It is said that the factory works only with the enthusiasm of the shareholders, employees, planners, and when asked if the activities of the company provide benefits, he smiles: “Moral satisfaction, benefits or not?”
“Everyone wants to earn a lot; the young people want and we wanted to. But motivation alone is not enough. In the long run, and you win if the product is good, if our ideas are the best. If this is not achieved, the worker will not earn well. This is how people go the cheapest way: in Norway, they work with secondary school workers in construction, “says the director of Sportinė Aviacija ir Ko.
The best pilots are gliders
The director of Sport Aviation and Ko says that the gliders are designed not only for sports, but also for training specialists. According to him, in the old days, future military pilots learned to plan, and even in Soviet times, pilots began to plan.
“A glider was the cheapest way to train a pilot. If you know how to fly a glider, you will land any plane. After all, when you turn off the engine of each plane, it becomes a glider. If the pilot does not know how to fly a glider and turns off the engine, he flourishes, his pants get wet, he experiences great stress. And the glider continues to fly without an engine, ”says V. Mačiulis.
The interviewer is convinced that before starting to fly airliners, each pilot must learn to fly. According to him, the best pilots are gliders, because they learn to fly without an engine.
“It is the cheapest way to select psychologically stable people who transport hundreds of passengers. Now they are training them as operators,” he says.
The interlocutor also adds that only gliders can better land a plane in an emergency. V. Mačiulis recalled the event that took place in the United States more than a decade ago, when birds got on the engine of a passenger plane. Because the pilot was an experienced glider, the plane with a hundred people landed safely in the Hudson River.
Lithuania could return to this model of specialist training.
“We have to think about how to train the pilots in the cheapest way, not the most expensive. He bought American planes to plant unsuspecting young people. About half of them don’t even work after graduating from the Aviation Institute.
Our research institutions train pilots, then they work for foreign companies, because there is no airline in Lithuania. For our money, pilots are trained who then work for everyone but us. Our engineers do not develop new products, they only carry out the technical maintenance of the aircraft, because there is no state investment ”, says the planner.
“Lithuania without aviation – Lithuania without a future”, V. Mačiulis accompanies the journalists half jokingly, half seriously.
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