Category:De Havilland Canada Aircraft

De Havilland Aircraft of Canada Ltd. is an aircraft manufacturer with facilities based in the Downsview area of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The original home of de Havilland Canada was the home of the Canadian Air and Space Museum located in what is now Downsview Park.

The aircraft company was created in 1928 by the British de Havilland Aircraft Company to build Moth aircraft for the training of Canadian airmen, and subsequently after the Second World War, designed and produced indigenous designs.

In the 1980s, the government of Canada privatized DHC and in 1986 sold the aircraft company to then Seattle-based Boeing. DHC was eventually acquired by Montreal-based Bombardier Aerospace in 1992.

In 2006, Viking Air of Victoria, British Columbia purchased the type certificates for all the original out-of-production de Havilland designs (DHC-1 to DHC-7).

In November 2018, Viking Air's holding company, Longview Aviation Capital, announced the acquisition of the Bombardier Dash 8 Series 400 (Q400) program, along with the rights to the de Havilland name and trademark. The deal, which closed on 3 June 2019 following regulatory approval, brought the entire de Havilland product line under the same banner for the first time in decades, under a new holding company named De Havilland Aircraft of Canada Limited.

Establishment
Founded in 1928 as a subsidiary of de Havilland Aircraft (UK), de Havilland Canada was first located at De Lesseps Field in Toronto, before moving to Downsview Airport in 1929.

Pre-Second World War
Flown for the first time on 26 October 1931, the DH.82 Tiger Moth was derived from the de Havilland DH.60 Moth. The DH 82 was powered by a 120-hp de Havilland Gipsy II engine, but the 1939 DH.82a received the 145-hp de Havilland Gipsy Major. More than 1,000 Tiger Moths were delivered before the Second World War, and subsequently 4,005 were built in the UK and shipped all over the world; 1,747 were built in Canada (the majority being the DH.82c model with enclosed cockpits, brakes, tail wheels, etc.). The follow-up de Havilland DH.83 Fox Moth was designed in England in 1932 as a light, economical transport and was built using as many Tiger Moth components as possible.

Second World War
The de Havilland Tiger Moth was a basic trainer of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan during the Second World War, whereby air crews from all over the British Commonwealth trained in Canada. DHC was the Canadian unit of the parent British de Havilland and during World War II was made into a crown corporation of the government of Canada.

Production of the Mosquito, nicknamed the "Mossie", was the company's greatest contribution to the war effort. It was one of the few front-line aircraft of the era constructed almost entirely of wood and was nicknamed the "Wooden Wonder". The Mosquito was designed to use speed instead of defensive armament to evade attack, and as a result, it was one of the fastest aircraft in the war, reaching 425 mph at 30,000 ft. The original design was intended as a light bomber, but soon proved itself in high-level photography and every phase of intruder operations.

Of the more than 7,000 Mosquitoes produced overall by de Havilland, de Havilland Canada produced 1,134. Some 500 were delivered to the UK by the end of the war, although several were lost en route across the Atlantic.

Post-war era
After the war, de Havilland Canada began to build its own designs uniquely suited to the harsh Canadian operating environment. The company also continued production of several British de Havilland aircraft and later produced a licence-built version of the American-designed Grumman S2F Tracker. In 1962, the Avro Canada aircraft production facility was transferred to de Havilland Canada by their then-merged parent company, UK-based Hawker Siddeley.

DHC-1 Chipmunk


The first true postwar aviation project was the DHC-1 Chipmunk, designed as a primary trainer, a replacement for the venerable de Havilland Tiger Moth. The Chipmunk was an all-metal, low-wing, tandem two-place, single-engined airplane with a conventional tail-wheel landing gear. It had fabric-covered control surfaces and a clear plastic canopy covering the pilot and passenger/student positions. The production versions of the airplane were powered by a 145-hp, in-line de Havilland Gipsy Major "8" engine.

The Chipmunk prototype first flew on 22 May 1946 in Toronto and had a total production run of 158 for RCAF use, while de Havilland (UK) produced 740 airplanes for training at various RAF and University Air Squadrons during the late 1940s and into the 1950s. The DHC-1 Chipmunk was still being used as a training aircraft by the UK's Army Air Corps until 1995.

As of October 2020, the Chipmunk was in service with the RAF Battle of Britain Memorial Flight and RN Historic Flight, and is used to train pilots to fly "taildraggers" as a prerequisite to flying the flight's Supermarine Spitfires and Hawker Hurricanes. All of the RAF's modern aircraft have tricycle undercarriage, so pilots are unfamiliar with tail-wheel aircraft.

Privatization
In the 1980s, the government of Canada privatized DHC and in 1986 sold the aircraft company to then Seattle-based Boeing. The government claimed to have guarantees from Boeing not to discontinue any product lines, but shortly thereafter, Boeing discontinued both the successful Twin Otter and the Dash 7. The jigs and specialised equipment for their manufacture were destroyed.

Boeing was in heavy competition with Airbus Industrie for a series of new airliners for Air Canada, at that time a Canadian crown corporation. Boeing used the DHC purchase to further strengthen its commitment to shared production contracts. The contract was particularly contentious. When Air Canada announced that Airbus had won the contract in 1988, amid claims of bribery, Boeing immediately put DHC up for sale, placing the company in jeopardy.

Sale to Bombardier
DHC was eventually acquired by Montreal-based Bombardier Aerospace in 1992. DHC was eventually incorporated into the Bombardier group of companies and the Dash 8 remained in production, with a particular emphasis being placed on its quiet operation in comparison to other aircraft of a similar size. This product line was expanded to four models, and the largest is labelled Q400.

Purchase by Viking/Longview
On 24 February 2006, Viking Air of Victoria purchased the type certificates from Bombardier Aerospace for all the original de Havilland designs, including:


 * DHC-1 Chipmunk
 * DHC-2 Beaver
 * DHC-3 Otter
 * DHC-4 Caribou
 * DHC-5 Buffalo
 * DHC-6 Twin Otter
 * DHC-7 Dash 7

The ownership of the certificates gives Viking the exclusive right to manufacture new aircraft; previously, Viking had purchased in May 2005 the right to manufacture spares and distribute the de Havilland heritage aircraft product line.

Despite the transfer of its light aircraft certificates to a new owner, de Havilland Canada has left a legacy of innovative and unique aerospace designs and its products are still flying in considerable numbers worldwide, and it has become a productive member of the Bombardier Aerospace stable. The Downsview plant still turns out civilian propeller aircraft, and the facility maintains thousands of employees.

In November 2018, Viking Air parent Longview Aviation Capital Corporation acquired the Bombardier Dash 8 programme and the de Havilland brand from Bombardier, in a deal that was expected to close by the second half of 2019. In January 2019, Longview announced that it would establish a new company in Ontario, to be called de Havilland Aircraft Co. of Canada, to continue production of the Q400 model and support the Dash 8 range. The deal closed on 3 June 2019; the newly formed company inherited an order book of 51 Q400s. Longview does not intend to merge Viking Air and De Havilland. Some 1200 Bombardier staff transferred to the new De Havilland company, which intends to continue Dash 8-400 production at Downsview until a lease expires in 2023 and hopes to negotiate an extension to that date. Other Dash 8 variants are also under consideration, in particular to target the North American 50-seater market.

Biblography

 * Hotson, Fred W. The de Havilland Canada Story. Toronto: CANAV Books, 1983. ISBN 0-07-549483-3.
 * Milberry, Larry. Aviation In Canada. Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson Ltd., 1979. ISBN 0-07-082778-8.
 * Molson, Ken M. and Harold A. Taylor. Canadian Aircraft Since 1909. Stittsville, Ontario: Canada's Wings, Inc., 1982. ISBN 0-920002-11-0.