Airbus Helicopters Canada Celebrates 40th Anniversary – 2024
Image provided by: Airbus Helicopters Canada Airbus Helicopters Canada Limited (AHCL) celebrates its 40-years of existence this year. The company that ultimately became AHCL was formed in 1984 at Fort Erie, Ontario under the name MBB Helicopter Canada Limited and started life as a wholly owned by Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm (MBB), a German aerospace company formed as the result of several mergers in the late 1960s. In mid-1993, the company was restructured as Eurocopter Canada Limited following the merger of the helicopter divisions of Aérospatiale of France and Daimler-Benz Aerospace AG (DASA), which incorporated MBB. Airbus Helicopters Canada was formed in February 2014 following the global rebranding of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS) as the Airbus Group and rebranding of Eurocopter as Airbus Helicopters. The story of Airbus Helicopters in Canada can be traced back to 1958 when the first turbine-powered civil helicopter in North America – a French-built Sud Aviation SE3130 Alouette II – was delivered to Autair Helicopters in Montreal. In the 1960s, this was followed by the delivery of the first SA316B Alouette III in Canada to the Department of Transport followed by a host of other French-designed helicopter models including the SA315B Lama, SA342G Gazelle, AS365N Dauphin, SA330J Puma, AS350B AStar/Squirrel, AS355 TwinStar, and AS332L Super Puma The company’s Canadian milestones also include the delivery of the first twin-engine German designed MBB Bo 105 in Canada in 1974, the formation of MBB Helicopter Canada Limited in 1984, and the delivery of the first BK117 in 1985. The French and German helicopter industries merged in 1992 under the Eurocopter banner in 1992 and Eurocopter Canada Limited was formed in mid-1993. Airbus Helicopters Canada gained market share with single and twin-engine models accounting for more than 50 percent of new Canadian commercial and para-public deliveries during the past 15 years. All totaled, there are more than 150 Airbus Helicopters customers in Canada flying 731 in Canada supported from company headquarters in Fort Erie which also manufacturers parts for Airbus Helicopters in service throughout the World. These remarkable flying machines play many essential roles in Canada supported the mining, oil and gas and forest industry, patrolled transmission lines and pipelines, fighting forest fires and monitoring wildlife, supporting ice breakers and scientific research, policing our communities and helping save lives.
Ontario Aerospace Innovator: Noxon Leavitt
Image provided by: The National Film Board of Canada (1965) Noxon Leavitt was born in 1921 and started his career as a machinist for the Bata shoe group’s engineering arm in the 1940s, and then worked for a company that made record players and radios before joining Westinghouse in 1953 as a senior engineer. In 1960, he was manager of advanced engineering in the electronics division of Westinghouse when he came up with the idea of the gyrostabilized camera mount “It was so successful … we were convinced we had something novel.” Leavitt made one his first presentations to the National Film Board in 1965 to highlighting how the camera system could be mounted on a 35 ft telescoping pole or fly at up to 600 feet on the Periscopter helicopter. When the military cut off funding in 1967, Leavitt recognized that he would have to play a direct role in the marketing of the system because he was the only one in the company that understood the system. Numerous trips to Washington knocking on the doors of various U.S. military departments which was a tremendous learning department and led to new export sales. When Westinghouse lost interest in the camera mount, Leavitt mortgaged his house and on March 1, 1974, bought the commercial rights to further develop and sell the camera stabilization system. Over the years, the system was refined to make it more compact and versatile and Istec established a global rental network which expanded use. In 1990, Leavitt shared the top engineering Oscar in scientific and technical awards announced by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and by the mid-1990s the Westcam had become an integral part of TV productions of sporting events from the New York Marathon to the America’s Cup yacht race and the Olympics.
The Carty Brothers: The RCAF-A Family Affair
L to R: Flight Sergeant Adolphus Carty, Flight Sergeant William Carty, Leading Aircraftman Clyde Carty, Aircraftman Second Class Donald Carty, and Pilot Officer Gerald Carty.Image Credit: RCAF Foundation For the Carty brothers, the RCAF was a family affair. Their father, Albert Carty, and his three brothers-in-law served in the First World War with the No. 2 Construction Battalion. Keeping the family tradition of service strong, five brothers from the Saint John, New Brunswick Carty family became airmen in the RCAF. Flight Sergeant Adolphus Carty, the eldest, was an airframe mechanic and his brother, Flight Sergeant William Carty, was an aeronautical inspector. Both men served with No. 118 Coastal Artillery Co-operation Squadron, an auxiliary squadron, in the war. Leading Aircraftman Clyde Carty was an RCAF firefighter while his brother, Leading Aircraftman Donald Carty was an equipment assistant. Their younger brother, Gerald “Gerry” Carty, enlisted at age 18 and went on to become one of the youngest commissioned Officers in the RCAF. After receiving the highest mark in his class on the written exam, Gerry was promoted to Flight Lieutenant at age 19. During the Second World War, he completed a total of 35 missions over enemy-occupied territory, flying in Wellington and Lancaster bombers at a time when Black Canadian bomber pilots were rare. As an aircrew member of Bomber Command, Gerry had one of the most dangerous jobs during the war. He was wounded when his four-engine bomber was stuck and crash landed in France. Carty was rescued by members of the French Resistance and recovered in Britain. On returning to Canada, Gerry received the first electronic technician certification issued in New Brunswick. He remained involved with aviation, founding the Fredericton Flying Club and serving as its President, establishing Air Acadia, an air charter service with a small fleet of aircraft, and serving as an instructor and Commanding Officer of the Fredericton No. 333 Air Cadet Squadron. All five Carty brothers survived the war and returned home decorated airmen. After the war, younger brothers, Robert and Malcolm, joined the Army and Air Cadets respectively. Discover more with the RCAF Foundation’s newest book: “PATHWAYS TO THE STARS” Authors: Michael Hood & P. Thomas Jenkins
L3Harris Wescam: Aerial Observation Innovators
WESCAM MX™-15D, Airborne Targeting and DesignatingImage Credit: L3Harris In 1957, Westinghouse Canada in Hamilton won a contract from the Canadian Armament Research and Development Establishment (CARDE) in Valcartier, Quebec to develop a close-circuit TV camera system that an armoured car crew could use to identify a tank-size object five kilometres away using a long lens. In 1960, the Westinghouse engineering team came up with the idea of a gyro-stabilized camera mount and that led to a new program to fly the TV camera beneath a small unmanned 50 pound electric-powered helicopter with a 4 ½ diameter coaxial rotor system called the Servotech Periscopter, which was tethered to the ground by a cable that could transmit TV images. When the Canadian military cancelled funding in 1967, new commercial customers had to be found for a new system called the WESSCAM (Westinghouse Stabilised and Steered Camera Mount), which was a steerable gyrostabilized camera mount housed in a large fiberglass dome. In April 1969, photos of the remote control, vibration-isolated, gyro-stabilized WESSCAM camera platform mounted to the underside of a Bell 206A JetRanger helicopter flying over Toronto were published in Flight International magazine. It allowed exceptionally long lenses to be used for film, TV and surveillance work while still giving a jitter-free image. Westinghouse built 20 units for military and commercial use. In 1974, Westinghouse engineer John Noxon “Nox” Leavitt bought the patents for the camera mount system from Westinghouse Canada and founded Istec Ltd. to further develop the renamed Wescam Camera System. By 1984, the 16-employee company had sold more than 50 of the $150,000 Westcam mounts (without a camera) and Istec mounts were in use in the USSR, Japan, the Middle East, Europe, the US and Canada. The camera mount can pan through 360 degrees and tilt up 30 degrees or down 90 degrees. In the mid-1980s, Istec was developing a 70 mm stereo camera system to be used by the National Film Board to produce a film for the EXPO’86 World Exposition in Vancouver. Early TV credits included 98 percent of the aerial views of the 1984 Olympics, the Pope’s visit to Canada in 1993, regular aerial views of the launch of the NASA Space Shuttle, and the 1993 slow speed police case of O.J. Simpson through Los Angeles in 1993. Early movie credits included Star Wars and Superman I, II and III before the list exploded to hundreds of move credits. In 1987, a management buyout launched a new era in Wescam innovation. By 1993, Istec Inc. had 100 employees, revenues of $11 million, up from $1 million in 1987, with Wescam units with cameras installed selling for between $250,000 and $500,000 each. That year the company made 384 rentals in the sports and entertainment industry, including 100 commercials, 32 feature films and 252 live video productions. In 1995, the Istec changed its name to Wescam Inc., and went public on the Toronto stock Exchange raising about $40 million in fresh investment to boost “gimbal ball” production at a new building in a Hamilton industrial park. The company experienced 30 to 50 percent annual growth rates between 1997 and 2001 and employment grew to 550 as new gymbal systems were developed. After 9/11, FAA airspace restrictions over major sporting events hit an important part of Wescam’s business and the industry went through a period of consolidation. U.S. defence contractor L-3 Communications bought Wescam in 2002, it was mostly interested in the military and security business, so its motion picture and broadcasting business was spun off to Pictorvision which was founded by former employees. The company’s airborne product line became the MX Series, a family of turrets from 10 to 25 inches in diameter, the smallest of which weighs just 37 pounds (168 kg) which can contain both imaging and laser systems. By 2014, more than 2500 of the MX series turrets are in use in 65 countries, and on more than 120 different airborne platforms. And the system was also adapted for use on military vehicles and warships. In June 2020, L3 Wescam, announced plans for a 330,000-square-foot head office in the nearby community of Waterdown. More than 1,000 employees working at company facilities in Burlington moved to the new Waterdown building with an estimated 200 new hires. – Kenneth Swartz Today, students from Centennial College, Toronto Metropolitan University, Queens University, McMaster University, York University and the University of Toronto are working together on collaborative DAIR projects, developing skills and helping to build an even stronger aerospace industry for Ontario and Canada.
Ontario Aerospace Innovator: Dr. Philip Lapp
Dr. Philip LappImage Credit: https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/canadian-space-pioneer-philip-lapp-dies-at-85-1.1472906 Phil Lapp was born in Toronto and obtained a Bachelor of Applied Science in Engineering Physics at the University of Toronto 1950, then travelled to Boston to obtain his Master’s and Doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Lapp enrolled in a new MIT graduate program in instrumentation which involved studies in five departments: aeronautical, electrical and mechanical engineering, as well as physics and mathematics. His PhD thesis on long range ballistic missiles trajectories and guidance systems was classified “Secret” by the U.S. government and never published. In 1954, Lapp was hired by the Guided Missile Division of de Havilland Canada in 1954 which won contract to design systems for air-to-air and surface-to-air missiles being developed for the RCAF and the Royal Canadian Navy. In 1958, Lapp was a founding member and first president of the Canadian Astronautics Society (which later merged with the Canadian Aeronautical Institute). Lapp played a leading role in Special Products winning the contract to build the Alouette 1 and design its STEM antennas. He coauthored the famous “Chapman Report” in 1967 that laid out the groundwork for Canada’s space program for the next 20 years. Lapp was a cofounder of SPAR Aerospace Products Ltd. and served as Senior Vice President when the company went public in 1968. He left SPAR as a full-time employee in 1969 to establish his own consulting company Philip A. Lapp Ltd. but remained as a member of SPAR’s Board of Directors from more than 30 years until the company was dissolved in 2000. – Kenneth Swartz Today, students from Centennial College, Toronto Metropolitan University, Queens University, McMaster University, York University and the University of Toronto are working together on collaborative DAIR projects, developing skills and helping to build an even stronger aerospace industry for Ontario and Canada.
Canada in Space
Alouette-I scientific satelliteImage Credit: https://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/satellites/alouette.asp In the late 1950s, Canada and the US agreed to collaborate on satellite technology, after NASA was created as a civilian agency to take over the American space race. Canada’s Defence Research Telecommunications Establishment (DRTE) proposed a satellite to study the ionosphere including the aurora borealis (Northern Lights) which often disrupted high frequency (HF) radio transmissions in the North. The Alouette 1 satellite established Canada as the third nation in space after the Soviet Union and the United States when it was launched in September 1962. DRTE developed the electronics for the satellite and contracted the “Special Products” division of de Havilland Aircraft of Canada (DHC) headquartered in the company’s old factory inside the RCAF Downsview air base to build the airframe and the antennas. Originally founded as DHC’s Guided Missile Division, it had a hand in the development of missile systems for the ill-fated Avro Arrow. Expanding on work done by George Klein at the National Research Council, DHC developed four STEM (Storable Tubular Extendable Member) antennas for Alouette 1 which were 23 and 45 m in length which would coil in and out of deployment mechanism like a carpenter’s measuring tape. The STEM became Canada’s first space technology product. DHC’s Special Products and its successor SPAR (Special Products Applied Research) sold more than 1,000 STEMs for use by the US space program (on the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo capsules) and on hundreds of satellites. SPAR teamed with RCA Victor Canada to develop Alouette 2 (launched in 1965) followed by ISIS (International Satellites for Ionospheric Studies) 1 (1969) and 2 (1971). In the late 1960s, Telesat Canada Corp then contracted Hughes Aircraft to develop the Anik A1, A2 and A3 communication satellites and SPAR and Northern Electric became the main subcontractors. SPAR also built the Communications Technology Satellite (CTS) known as Hermes which launched in 1976. In 1975, Canada agreed to participate in the NASA shuttle program and agreed to find the development of Remote Manipulator Arm (Canadarm) which incorporated SPAR’s STEM technology as an actuator. The system was considered more complex than a CANDU nuclear reactor or the Avro Arrow, which were the engineering benchmarks in Canada at the time. In 1977, SPAR purchased the space assets of RCA Canada and Northern Telecom which provided it with the critical mass to be selected as the prime contractor to build the Anik D satellites for Telesat – the first commercial satellite prime contract awarded to a Canadian company. – Kenneth Swartz Today, students from Centennial College, Toronto Metropolitan University, Queens University, McMaster University, York University and the University of Toronto are working together on collaborative DAIR projects, developing skills and helping to build an even stronger aerospace industry for Ontario and Canada.
Ontario Aerospace Innovator: Knox Hawkshaw
The original Canso #9754 in service with the RCAF.Image Credit: Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum Knox Hawkshaw was born in rural Ontario on December 11, 1924, and served as a pilot with the Royal Canadian Air Force during the Second World War. Postwar, he earned an engineering degree from the University of Toronto, then started a forty-year career with Field Aviation Inc. as an aeronautical engineer during which he shared his knowledge and expertise with people in over sixty countries. In the late 1950s, Hawkshaw took the waterbomber concept developed by the Ontario Provincial Air Service to refill external water tanks mounted on the floats of the single engine DHC-2 Beaver and DHC-3 Otter and applied it to the much larger PBY-5 Canso amphibious aircraft. Hawkshaw designed a retractable scoop that filled a pair of water tanks installed in the hull of the PBY with 800 gallons of water as the aircraft “skimmed” the surface of a lake at high speed and the water dropped through a series of “bomb doors” in the aircraft belly. This meant that the aircraft could reload at the nearest water source. The success of the “scooper” firefighting concept resulted in Field selling almost 40 PBY’s waterbombers to the Governments of Quebec, Saskatchewan, Newfoundland and France and private operators in Canada, the US and overseas. In the mid-1960s, Hawkshaw began working with the OPAS (now OMNR) to develop scooper systems that were installed within the EDO and CAP floats on the DHC-2 Turbo Beaver, DHC-3 Otter, and DHC-6 Twin Otter to fight forest fires. Then in the late 1960s, Canadair developed the CL-215 waterbomber and contracted Field Aviation and Hawkshaw to design the firefighting aircraft’s water scoops. Hawkshaw played an important engineering and development role at Field through a critical period in the company’s growth. As a recipient of the CASI McCurdy Award he was recognized by his peers as one of Canada’s pre-eminent aerospace engineers. – Kenneth Swartz Today, students from Centennial College, Toronto Metropolitan University, Queens University, McMaster University, York University and the University of Toronto are working together on collaborative DAIR projects, developing skills and helping to build an even stronger aerospace industry for Ontario and Canada.
Ontario Aerospace Innovator: Paul Dilworth
Orenda engine on display at Carlton UniversityImage Credit: Orenda Engines Wikipedia As Manager and Chief Engineer of the Gas Turbine Division of Avro, Paul Dilworth led the development of the Orenda jet engine in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Paul Dilworth was born on January 31, 1915, in Toronto, Ontario and graduated in mechanical engineering from the University of Toronto. After graduation he joined the National Research Council (NRC) in Ottawa where he was assigned to work on aero-engine technology. During the war Canada was 100 percent dependent on the United Kingdom and the United States for aircraft engines. Dilworth and an NRC colleague were tasked with preparing a comprehensive report on UK jet engine technology and how Canada could accelerate wartime developments. What became known as the Banks Report recommended Canada establish a cold weather test facility for testing jet engines in Winnipeg and a jet engine research and development organization. Paul Dilworth was appointed the manager of Canada’s first engine test facility in Winnipeg in late 1943 and ran the facility on behalf of the NRC and later Turbo Research until it closed after the defeat of Nazi Germany in May 1945. A.V. Roe Canada (Avro) bought Turbo Research in 1946 and Dilworth was appointed Manager and Chief Engineer of the Gas Turbine Division of Avro, which later became Orenda Engines Ltd. The small engineering team studied various centrifugal and axial flow engine designs before designing the axial flow Chinook, research engine followed by the Orenda engine to power the Avro CF-100 and Canadair Sabre. Dilworth left Avro in 1952 to establish an engineering consulting firm later called Dilworth, Secord, Meagher and Associates Ltd. (DSMA) in Toronto that worked on a wide range of aerospace, engineering and nuclear power and developed a nuclear reactor refuelling robot that replaced spent fuel rods in the reactor core. This robotic arm was similar to what NASA was seeking for a new space craft and SPAR, CAE and DSMA teamed up to design and build the Canadarm which became Canada’s contribution to the Space Shuttle program. – Kenneth Swartz Today, students from Centennial College, Toronto Metropolitan University, Queens University, McMaster University, York University and the University of Toronto are working together on collaborative DAIR projects, developing skills and helping to build an even stronger aerospace industry for Ontario and Canada.
Avro Canada CF-100 and the Orenda jet engine
CF-100 #100785Image Credit: Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum As the Second World war drew to a close, the Canadian government including the Royal Canadian Air Force adopted a policy to encourage the design and development of aircraft and engines in Canada. In September 1945, Roy Dobson, head of A.V. Roe in Great Britain (which was part of the Hawker Siddeley Group) purchased the Victory Aircraft Limited factory at Malton Airport (now Lester B Pearson International Airport) and established A.V. Roe Canada Limited (Avro Canada). By 1946, Avro Canada was pursuing a two-jet program: a passenger jet designated the C-102 Jetliner, and a twin-engine jet fighter designated the CF-100 which met the RCAF requirements for speed, rate of climb, service ceiling, range and all-weather operations to protect Canada from Soviet bomber attack. The CF-100 was designed and built at the Avro Canada factory under the leadership of project designer John C.M. Frost and would be powered by a Canadian designed jet engine. The prototype first flew at Malton Airport on January 19, 1950 (powered by British made Rolls Royce Avon engines from the UK) followed by the first Canadian-powered prototype on June 20, 1951. The CF-100 was the only Avro Canada designed aircraft to enter service with 692 aircraft delivered over a nine-year period to the Royal Canadian Air Force and 53 to the Belgium Air Force, which was the only export customer. The CF-100 remained in service for more than 30 years with the last retired in 1982. All great aircraft are built around an engine. During the war, a small group of Canadian engineers from the National Research Council went to Great Britain to study the gas turbine engines being developed by Sir Frank Whittle’s Power Jets Ltd. The result of these visits was that the NRC established a cold weather test cell at Winnipeg’s Stevenson Field in late 1943 to test a Rolls-Royce W2B engine, based on the Whittle design, and the government also established Turbo Research Ltd. in the Leaside neighbourhood of Toronto to secretly develop an axial-flow jet engine. After the war, Dobson bought the company, and it became Avro’s Gas Turbine Division. Its first product was the 2,400 lb thrust Chinook research engine which first ran on March 17, 1948, which was followed by the 6,000 lb thrust Orenda engine which ran for the first time on February 10, 1949. The Orenda engine was selected to power both the twin engine Avro CF-100 and the single Canadair Sabre fighter. The first Orenda powered Sabre flew on October 5, 1950, followed by the first Orenda powered CF-100 on June 20, 1951. Avro’s Gas Turbine Division became Orenda Engines Ltd. Almost 4,000 Orenda engines of various versions up to 7,300 lb (2,724 kg) thrust were delivered and a handful are still flying in Canadair Sabre fighters owned by vintage aircraft enthusiasts. The Avro Arrow was developed as a successor to the CF-100 and Orenda Engines Ltd. developed the 26,000 lb (11,804 kg) Iroquois 2 engine. The Federal government cancelled the Arrow program on February 20, 1959, just weeks before the first Arrow equipped with a pair of Iroquois engines was scheduled to fly. – Kenneth Swartz Today, students from Centennial College, Toronto Metropolitan University, Queens University, McMaster University, York University and the University of Toronto are working together on collaborative DAIR projects, developing skills and helping to build an even stronger aerospace industry for Ontario and Canada.
Ontario Aerospace Innovator: Richard (Dick) Hiscocks
Mk V Anson RCAF Station Hamilton – Mount Hope, OntarioImage Credit: Ban Galbasi Richard (Dick) Hiscocks was born in Toronto in 1914 and won numerous prizes for his model aircraft while a teenager. He enrolled in the University of Toronto’s inaugural Engineering Physics program and graduated in 1938 after spending his summers working at de Havilland Aircraft of Canada (DHC). His next stop was a job in the design office of de Havilland Aircraft in Hatfield, England after which he went to Ottawa in 1940 to work in the structure’s lab of the National Research Council. Hiscock led a team studying how wooden parts could be used in wartime aircraft production, which led to the development of the molded wooden fuselage of the Anson Mk V aircraft. At the end of the war, the NRC sent Hiscocks to Europe as part of an international team reviewing German aeronautical advancements and to interrogate German scientists. The knowledge Hiscocks gained during the war proved extremely valuable when he rejoined DHC in 1946 to lead the aerodynamics team developing the DHC-2 Beaver. He was responsible for designing the Beaver’s high lift wing and full span flaps which gave the Beaver excellent short takeoff and landing (STOL) performance. Hiscocks worked on all subsequent DHC’s famous STOL aircraft (Otter, Caribou, Buffalo, Twin Otter, Dash 7 and Dash 8) until he retired as Vice President of Engineering in 1979. After retirement he worked as a consultant for several Canadian and US aviation companies, including kit-plane manufacturer Murphy Aircraft in British Columbia. – Kenneth Swartz Today, students from Centennial College, Toronto Metropolitan University, Queens University, McMaster University, York University and the University of Toronto are working together on collaborative DAIR projects, developing skills and helping to build an even stronger aerospace industry for Ontario and Canada.