Szybowcowy Zakład Doświadczalny

Just after World War II, which destroyed most of Polish pre-war gliders and - more importantly - their production blueprints, the Main Scouts' Gliding Centre (Centralny Harcerski Ośrodek Szybowcowy) was created in Bielsko-Biała in May 1945, by the Ministry of Communications. In autumn 1945 it was re-organized into the Gliding Organizational Centre (Ośrodek Organizacji Szybownictwa), and in January 1946, into the Gliding Institute (Instytut Szybownictwa, IS). It inherited tasks and traditions of the pre-war Gliding and Motor gliding Institute in Lwów. It consisted of Training Division, Technical Division and Experimental Workshops. As more organizations took on gliding training, the main task of the Institute became design work and technical research. In that period, several gliders were designed, under IS designation.

As a sign of new tasks, in 1948 the Gliding Institute was renamed to the Glider Experimental Works (Szybowcowy Zakład Doświadczalny), headed first by Władysław Nowakowski. It became the main Polish centre of designing gliders, which were next produced by the SZD workshops or, in conditions of a centrally planned state economy, by other state-owned workshops and factories.

In 1946-1972 only, the Polish centralized glider industry, focussed around the SZD, produced 2743 gliders, of which 1167 were exported (starting from 1951), 367 of which to Western countries.

In 1973 series production of laminate gliders started.