Flight Daily News

New textile trends on show at Interiors Expo

Yarwood leather is displaying a breakthrough lightweight upholstery leather for the aviation industry called SupaLite. The fabric counteracts two problems that have been dogging the sector for several years – weight and feel.

At 390g/m², SupaLite is 30% lighter than its competitors and 50% lighter than standard aviation grade leathers. For some airlines, this will generate weight savings of more than 1 kg per seat. Matthew Nicholls, technical and operations director says: “Our guesstimate is that swapping like for like with SupaLite and other leather, you’d save a tonne of weight on an 5-5-5 A380 configuration.” The product has a luxurious soft feel and is both EASA and FAA certified.

Across the hall at Neotex development manager Dr Lado Benisek is demonstrating the company’s new flooring technology. Traditionally, OEMs have to put double tape all over an aircraft floor in order to stick carpet down. Neotex has created a carpet with adhesive dots that is easy to stick down and equally easy to remove if necessary.

Benisek says: “It takes 166 hours to carpet a 200 m² area with double tape. With this new technology, which comes in pre cut segments, it takes six hours, a time saving of around 97%. Neotex is also showing its dry or wet clean seat fabric, weighing in at 120g/m² rather than the standard 280g m/².

Benisek says: “In a 400-seat aircraft this means a saving of 100kg, which at $150 per kilo flown saves $60,000 over a year.” Benisek is also an industry consultant and his tip for directions to watch out for over the coming months is new nylon carpets that meet fire safety rules and that have three or four times the carpet life of their woolly cousins.

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