At the airfield, in the workshop and at Schempp-Hirth Company, a name often comes up when people are talking about innovation: “Timo”. Being interested at first by his “canopy flash strobe” we have on the Discus-2c FES, I decided to meet him to have a bit more inside about SOTECC, his company, his work and his products. SOTECC is located in Kirchheim under Teck, only a few blocks away from Schempp-Hirth. After being offered a very good coffee in a very “start-up ambience room”, I sat with Timo and his brothers, David and Marco, let’s go for this interview.
Could you introduce yourself?
Timo: I am Timo, the CEO and founder of SOTECC, the engineer behind the canopy Flash and other strobe solutions as well as the electric retractable gear for the new Arcus with the Schempp-Hirth team. I am working together with my brothers Marco and David.
David: My name is David. I am 23 and currently working at SOTECC, waiting for my airline pilot training to resume. It stopped because of the Coronavirus, but it is a very good opportunity to be here. Working with Timo, for a good project… It is good.
Marco: My name is Marco, I'm the "oldest brother". In real life I am an airline pilot and act more like an advisor for SOTECC. My role here is more about sharing my experience, giving ideas to my brothers, based on real problems on the field.
All three of them, finishing each other sentences: We are all passionate about gliding. We started 15 years ago at Löchgau field, just north of Stuttgart. We are all instructor, flying competition. Timo is the one doing the technical part. He is the one, awaken the all night, working, designing until … until it works. He was always like that. At age on 5 or 6, it was creating little engine…. Way before SOTECC, at the airfield, he created a light system to automatically indicate which one of the ropes of the winch is engaged. He is really passionate.
Could you tell me what SOTECC means?
All three : SOaring TEChnology and Customization) ….
How did you start SOTECC?
Timo: After I had finished school, I made an apprenticeship at Schempp-Hirth on "light aircraft building". It went really well (indeed, Timo was honoured as one of the best apprentice in Germany in 2017). It also gave me the possibility to build our own Discus-2c FES. It is a very special Discus-2c as it is the only one with “wing-LED strobes” as I call them (smile). I mean that it has position strobe lights on the leading edge of the winglet. I think it is the best-looking option but that solution is too complex and costy. It is not doable on standard production basis and almost impossible to retrofit. For safety purpose, we would like as many gliders as possible to have strobe lights so we focused on developing a canopy flash more efficient than the existing products on the market, with better and brighter LEDs. After the Hahnweide championship 2018, where the gaggles were really bad, we also installed a strobe on the fuselage of our Discus. We think that is really good for safety, so I wanted to develop a strobe that is efficient, good looking and easy to install for other glider pilots to have it. Finally, also in 2018, with our partner Schempp-Hirth, I started the design of the electric gear for the new Arcus. This is how the company started!
Marco: Yes, I think it really started with questions related to safety. We know personnaly people who needed to jettison. And we all had that moment in flight where you are adjusting something in the LX or the Oudie and then you have a Flarm alert. You are looking out, but you can’t find it. That is the worst 2 or 3 seconds in a cockpit. So, we decided to find a solution. Now, we are not only focusing on safety. We want to develop new and better solution for glider pilots. We hope it is just the beginning.
With the Canopy Flash and the Strobe, SOTECC offers a complete solution to be easily seen (and so avoided). That covers two classic types of collision: face-to-face and slow vertical approach (or glider banked for thermalling).
How do you design a new product?
Timo : First is the idea. If I see something in a big airplane, or something that looks cool. Like the stobes on an aircraft. You can see them even on bright daylight, while gliders are white and thin, you can’t see them. Mainly when they are coming toward you like here on Swabian Alpes or in “the parcours” in the Alpes it is so thin. So that’s the background for the canopy flash and the strobe solutions. We also have customers asking us for a specific products.
When I have decided what I wanted to create, I start to think how the part can look like. In general, I am focusing first on the electronic. I have tools to draw and design circuit. Then I design in parallel the casing, the body of the equipment. The next step is prototyping, and that I also do here. We have 3D printer and a lot of tools for fast trials. The last step is making it ready for the production. It needs a lot time too, as implementation inside a production line is always minded with efficiency background thinking in the integration of any equipment, so this is one of the most important part. At the end, we are producing almost everything “in house”.
Anything new coming from SOTECC soon?
We have a lot of thing ongoing, thinking about more product… some more sophisticated ones but we can’t talk about it for now. It is too early. However, the SOTECC strobe light will be available soon. We are already taking pre-orders. And we will have a flaps indicator coming out soon. We wanted a small but readable one and modern, for small instrument panel.
So you said that costumer can ask you to design something for them. Could you design something for me right now?
Sure! what do you need?
Ok, I wasn’t ready for this opportunity. Nothing could really come to my mind right away. So we played around for Timo and his brother to show me their work.
From design to 3D printing… In 20 minutes, I got my “prototype” out of the “bath of resin”.
They showed me the workshop, full of surprise from Haribo sweets to the latest prototype of the Flaps indicator currently in test.
Thanks Timo, David and Marco, we will follow you in the coming months and years with your upcoming products!
All three : Tchuss…, Auf Viedersehen Claire!
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