American Made Factory Tour: How the best aircraft tugs in the world are made.

all right we've been invited over the best tugs and I just talked to them it's a little weird they for some reason asked me to bring my tug back well anyway we're on the way we'll see you there I'm Corey Robin right along with me and the flying cowboys as we take you flying into the backcountry where there's no runway required [Music] [Applause] oh geez gosh I'm really really kind of excited to see how best tugs are made one of the things that is vexing me a little bit as I can't figure out why in the heck they would want me to bring my best stuff maybe I did such a good job customizing it they want it back about five minutes out we just got two best tugs oh by the way let me introduce you to Jason Williams he helps out the vlog he's like one of my best pals I'm an episode two shortly yes he is he's an episode 2 check out episode 2 we'll put a link to that one in the description below this is Jason alright these are not built cheaply they're awesome alright we're pulling up to the the door at best tugs you show it to you here's the best tugs door we're gonna go right on inside hey how's it going mark Jen how are you good I brought you a hug not sure why I brought it because we're gonna upgrade you to a type that's not even gonna be out for another month you're getting some cool features that's right you know we've got to take care of our boys awesome come on in let me grab real quick [Music] we've had our two latest introductions to the best tech series that's been our alpha line we've got an A two and A three here they look the same they behave the same but there's a big primary difference and that's motor science and that motor gives you a lot more torque and a lot more speed so what we've done and it's coming out with next month and what we've done for you you've had the a3 but you'll see a big primary difference here we'll spin this around and you can see it alright so I one of the things I noticed immediately on the on the truck that I purchased it has this this setup yes you this to switch set up that this new one that they're giving me has three buttons you want to explain yes so your typical power comes on the blue light is your status and it it'll blink if there's an error code for example our tugs are full digital so if you put too much stress into the aircraft's instead of breaking the nose gear or damaging your firewall it backs out and it'll flash your code and say hey your Park brake was set or your wills for chopped we're not gonna rip your gear off your plane and so they they all have that you've got your light but here's the big thing with the bigger faster motor we now have a higher and low range on the a3 so when you're moving in an aircraft you can put it in low range and then a little bit of throttle is a little bit of will full throttle is more speed but when you just want to halt but put it in high range and that gives you all the speed that a3 that you have have but you can go into little range and have a lot more controllability so I have a question for you I got my tongue a couple of weeks ago when is this going to be available to the public end of April end of April so right around Sun in fun yes okay are you gonna announce it aside yeah we will have this a ton of fun mark just showed me this I can't really show you very much of it because this is also another innovation here at best tugs that's going on their very first model right now yeah yeah so in this department this is where I'm noticing like for example this guy over here is designing some sort of part on a is this a CAD program yeah that's just SolidWorks everything's 3d modeled so that we can do we can make sure everything fits perfect it works perfect we can move parts see they interact we can stress test it make sure that it's engineered to hold on for life and then you've got all the engineers in here can share what they're working on I'm a primary screen if somebody says hey guys I ran into an issue brainstorm with me so they're kind of packed in here tight one thing I noticed over here is Paxton they had a Paxton but you saw Paxton in episodes 1 through 4 of the vlog maybe even in 5 a little bit but I noticed that he's actually got a design up on the big screen here but next to him as a 3d printer are you prototyping almost in real time before you go to the machine shop absolutely so we make an machine anything but a lot of stuff will we will print and plastics Wow but we we can prototype we've got three 3d printers in-house and they're pretty once you are done this yeah this was just calibrating of printers it's a Zenith that's a zenith that is so cool so completely 3d printed and that is actually a fairly complex model so when you're building when you're designing something like this and this is obviously production level quality this is anodized which is probably printed in plastic there you go oh wow there it is this was printed in plastic probably 20 times before we started making chips out of aluminum it has to be in-house yeah and it has to be like American like go get it done oh I love that's a word American made baby well let's go check out the rest guys shop we're going back here safety first they're not not a super stylish but they'll keep your eyeballs in one piece this is one of our seven areas where Grassley now spread into three different buildings we'll give you a tour of this one because as the most things going on we'll show you where it all starts Rob materials come in they come to this rack and so when we say it's American made I mean we're not kind of american-made it's on hundred percent so it comes right in here it gets backed up comes off at this cut table all parts are cut down we have a laser cutter and CNC benders we made your cuts band all of our plates you have a whole bunch of parts let's go into making up it would surprise you to know that in this time the parts count in a bravo cut 439 parts every either weld wire crimp cut smaller bulb that's a lot of parma here in America it's all right here that's awesome and so a lot of parts come in here they get stronger they go all the way [Music] hardware mode baby so this is a CNC plasma cutter so things when were cutting into tube and we don't want to cut through the other side of tube we use a plasma cutter and then we have laser cutters they're cutting the still that needs to be really accurate flying parts like these are all laser cut pieces you can see it's a lot tighter finish until we use both CNC plasma and CNC laser to make all our parts and it's all done how many of these are you completing every day right now we're doing about at least five a day it's the minimum requirement then what's though by the day and the waiting list is how long right now a waiting list about six weeks we're gonna get a new building I'm gonna really step up for that they get powder-coated at a local place right up the street they come back so every day we pick up they've been sandblasted powder-coated and that's not paint that's big dog like lifetime kind of a finish that will never rust revenue so unless somebody gouged it and it's hard to gouge that off all right now they start coming down the same line this is one of our assembly line and this handles the Bravo line and each station these will move about every hour here for good station it's a 1-1 touch finish that drops off the line it goes for test drive quality control and all of them moved Amman to the new crane get set up on the assembly line and each person you can see a lot of staff are out and we're on a break sometimes a good time to do this so you have one person on each station and they know when the power comes by they got to roll it down the line and the next guy is ready to go okay mark so this actually looks like a tug that I haven't before you have it nobody's seen this touch so there's a lot of types to do a hydraulic with but you've got customers to have a TPM and most hanger doors on all your key hangers are 13 feet but a TV antenna needs at least 14 feet to clear so you ain't you raise the nose hurry enough to get the tail bed Wow and a regular hydraulic lift on plug lifts from from ground to 3 inches so we decided that's not enough for our customers this is the highest lifting tug on the market this tray it's not in but this tray will come a full 10 inch lift so that you can get something like a TBM into a small hanger so if you wrap these tires because you're gonna move them around a little bit in the henna factory and the customers gonna get them and we don't want it dirty I don't know about you guys but when I get a new TV there's something sacred about pulling the plastic off there so our customers tubs can't touch dirty floor until they decide to remove the rubber will be pleased I love that hey Roy your tongue is on the way buddy I see it right here and in Roy's looks like it's all pasture quality so it's been for a test-drive outside it's at a computer slipped up to it run through all cycles and everything's perfect so I'll go from here so this is ready for shipping so all they got to do is fold it up and create it plain just leave it crate it it'll come back into here and by the end of the day this is full of pallets and then about 4 o'clock all the freight trucks truck coming in and hauling them out and then up here's where we start customers tugs who aren't quite ready yet for the last day and the water customers have to do is put it together we just said you know what we'll spend the extra money on the crate and the packaging so the customer gets the product they can flip that handle up open the crate and drive it out the idea that this is a it's easy to pop the screws out this lowers down and I've kind of a negative ramp to drive the tug right out I can't believe cram so much manufacturing in such a small space I don't know how I've done it either it's amazing it's a tight fit that's awesome we're trying to stay efficient yeah and we are building a new building right so upstairs here's our sub assembly section every station you can see - these Bay's will have an employee that's an expert at one particular thing for example this here has to be built there's a lot of wiring small computers this all has to be done here and so when we're done machining these plates we anodized them we laser print the the words on it then someone has to sit and do all this and so at each station something's being done so this is a test station these testing wire harnesses to make sure the harness works correctly I'll drive the motor we don't want to wait to make sure it works so it goes through a battery everything and the best tubs is tested multiple places so you're building an air compressor onto a tug yep that's pretty cool why in the heck would you want an air compressor on a tug GV bullet tires and all kinds of stuff yeah their compressors are awesome what are you working on I am making a new wire harness yeah [Music] what's up buddy how's it going I'm just looking at all the components that go into a vest tug and I'm just starting to appreciate the complexity on the value every single one of these parts has to be meticulously shopped for engineered and planned on priced out that's a lot of work that's a lot of parts that's a lot of awesome so why do you invest 10 times the pie well one of the biggest things is because we want the customer not have an issue down the road hey we're thinking about our customer we want our product to last a long time that's right that's really cool all right just look at this connection I mean they could have put this together and manufactured this and just thrown it down but everything is crimped perfectly and sealed and wrapped and that's just the connector that's cool that's a lot of connectors [Music] [Music] one of the cool things about best times is it's a family business it really is Americana is still alive who's in here the hardest-working person in this company yeah yeah how's it going this is Susie patty this is that's my wife this is Mark's wife and she flies the Cirrus she's awesome and the reality is part of the recent best tech started is because she had tried a whole bunch of different tugs on her Cirrus and said when he gonna engineer me a tug that makes it easier to fly more often you want to know the sign of where all the real magic happens it's it's the busiest desk in the place I know where everything is that's awesome oh thanks so we found the laser cutter and etcher and so this is the stock this is what it looks like as it goes into the laser cutter and when it comes out oh look at that that is beautiful all right so it just started raining that's actually starting to snow a little bit too here's a here's a bunch it took not only the ones that are in containers in there but all these will be picked up these are the non local deliveries that are going out today so as you can see best tugs has a lot and I've mentioned it before a lot of manufacturing crammed into a small space they're actually building right next door to their existing locations so we're going to go over and check it out come with me all right we're here in front of the new best tugs building and it is really starting to snow how big is it compared to the one you're in now yeah it's it's six times base okay it's gonna be two stories this one will give us about 26,000 more square feet to work with nice and then there's another piece of land next to it that we hope to build another building on we're adding some new product lines that and hopefully will continue to outgrow our space all right we just finished up the factory tour over at best tugs and I gotta say I'm even more impressed now and I was before it's good to see a family business that's run on the principles of quality craftsmanship attention to detail making the best I really enjoyed the process was fun meeting all the family members and hanging out for the afternoon the very first model of the Alpha 3 they gave me what a surprise they're not releasing it until son and fun and that is on April 10th through the 15 its 2018 in Lakeland Florida we can check out their booth there just amazing stuff go flying and we'll see you on the next one [Music] you

Channel: Cory Robin

Views: 55,793

Rating: 4.954802 out of 5

Keywords: corey robin, Best Tugs, best tugs alpha, best tugs bravo, best tugs aircraft, aircraft tug, aircraft tow tractor, aircraft towing, aircraft towbar manufacturers, airplane tugs electric, how it's made, factory tour, mark patey, patey brothers, welding, american made, carbon cub ss, factory, aviation, flying cowboys, aircraft tugs, plasma cutting, airplane, airplane tugs, pushback, tug, aircraft, trent palmer

Id: udlZXHpdJyM

Length: 18min 2sec (1082 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 27 2018