pilotmww
They would be wasting their time with the Q400. Otherwise I wish them good luck. They need to stay away from Boeing, otherwise Boeing will do whatever they can like they did in the 1990’s to shut them down.
They would be wasting their time with the Q400. Otherwise I wish them good luck. They need to stay away from Boeing, otherwise Boeing will do whatever they can like they did in the 1990’s to shut them down.
Just so folks understand, the actual De Havilland Aircraft company stopped existing a long time ago.
A venture capital company Longview Aviation Capital brought the Dash 8 intellectual property from Bombardier and then renamed it to a totally new company they are calling De Havilland Canada.
Longview already bought Viking Air which had purchased the type certificates of the DHC-1 through 7 and for several years ago. Have a look at the Longview and new De Havilland web sites, I’ve seen eVTOL sites that were more convincing that they were a going aviation concern. They repeatedly take credit for the real De Havilland’s 100 yr history and 1,000 aircraft production, but actually have nothing to do with the original company other than eventually buying the rights to their IP.
This proposed new venture will start by spending another year investigating restarting production of the Twin Otter, than spend another year investigating the feasibility of restarting the Dash 8. Production would perhaps begin in 5 yrs.
This is factory is planned to be in Wheatland County, Alberta, with a population of 9,000 in an area currently zoned for farming. Pseudo-De Havilland is claiming “up to 1,500 good jobs” According to the Calgary Herald, “De Havilland expects to start construction after the site has been rezoned by the county, which could occur in late 2023, with some operations beginning as soon as 2025.” Yep, a lot of hedging in their choice of words.
Like a lot of places businesses avoid, Calgary’s is touting their new “Open For Business” slogan. Similar to places like NY State, if you were actually open for business, businesses would be aware of it and you wouldn’t need an ad campaign.
DHC-6 Twin Otter plane and the Dash 8-400 have not been in production since 2000 due to lack of market. While there is a perhaps a market for a dozen or so Twin Otters every year , unless the economics and passenger preference have changed, there’s no one lining up to buy the Dash 8-400.
As far as “The company is receiving no tax or development incentives from provincial or federal governments.”, that is not correct. Viking (and now Pseudo-De Havilland) for 15 years has been a major recipient of the generosity of the Canadian taxpayers through tens of millions of financing, credit, and free brokering efforts to foreign militaries and private companies through the Canadian Commercial Corporation (CCC), without which, it is unlikely they would have the resources to sell the 140 or so Twin Otters Viking made before 2020 over a 13 year period.
This has a ring Foxconn Wisconsin, i.e. a lot of well meaning local and regional governments hearing what they want to hear but ignoring the numbers that make this dream unrealistic.
Plus, according to the Ministry of Jobs, Economy and Innovation of Alberta which is responsible for “Implementation of Alberta’s Recovery Plan” (yikes!) they have a tracking tool of projects, and this is simply listed as “Proposed”, and unlike all the dozens of other tracked proposals, there is no actual investment dollar amount listed. So this seems to be an idea for an idea at this point. Maybe hold off on flipping that house in Wheatland County until this gets a little firmer…