In 1947 [... Howard Head ] blamed “those long, clumsy hickory skis.” Unlike most first-time skiers, however, he had an idea about how to improve them. “If wood were the best material,” he said, “they’d still be making airplanes out of wood.”
[...] he took a hickory ski and conducted his own stress test on it. He was amazed to discover that hickory’s strength was two times what was stated in the engineering handbook. He had designed his ski so it was too weak! He replaced the fragile honeycomb with a marine-fir plywood core. During the next two years he and his crew built 40 different prototypes. Many years later he recalled, “If I had known then that it would take 40 versions before the ski was any good, I might have given it up. But, fortunately, you get trapped into thinking the next design will be it.” [...]
[...] From the time Head offered his Standards until the time he sold his company, ski manufacturing enjoyed 15 percent growth every year.
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