Key Staff
The person we are going to focus on in the design area is Steve Cocker.
Steve is a highly experienced balloon designer and is one of the senior members of the design team at Cameron Balloons. In this department there are 5 people. They are:
Envelope design | Steve Cocker |
| Steve Wallace |
Hardware | John Davies |
| Rob Buckley |
Airworthiness | Barry Bower |
Most of Steve's work is on special shape balloons. He will monitor the process the whole way through and ensure that he is happy before progressing to the next stage of design. The process is:
- Definition of the exact shape
- Sketches to show how the shape can be formed
- A model (depending on the complexity)
- 3D computer shaping
- Detailed design of panels
He has an aeronautical engineering degree and has chosen to specialise in balloon design as he enjoys the challenge and the variety. One of his recent designs was a special shape of Van Gogh.
A special shape balloon may take about 4-6 weeks work (225 hours or so). Probably around 20% of this time is spent at the computer, drawing up the initial design and then working on the detailed panel shapes. The final design will be passed on as a series of computer templates, which are then cut by the plotting machine. At this point the responsibility shifts to the production department.
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