8 replies to this topic

[Mike K.]

Viking Air is looking at expanding its facility at the airport and building a new type of aircraft.

Viking Air has a lofty dream
North Saanich firm hopes to revive Twin Otter production
BY CARLA WILSON Times Colonist staff

De Havilland’s Twin Otter airplane is as much a part of Canadiana as wild Pacific salmon, Mounties and maple leaves.
North Saanich’s Viking Air Ltd. hopes to bring the plane back into production. If that happens, the company could hire up to 150 new technical workers, as well as more university-educated aeronautical engineers. Viking president Dave Curtis’s dream would see production resume in January for the first 19-seat Twin Otter built since 1988.
“We want to make it a great western Canadian project,” Curtis said Friday.
Viking has hired technical graduates from North Island College, Camosun College, and the British Columbia Institute of Technology. It recently signed a memorandum of understanding with the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology to develop specialized training to build Twin Otters, said a company official.
Viking specializes in manufacturing equipment for de Havilland aircraft, such as the Beaver, Twin Otter and Dash 7. Services include aircraft maintenance, repairs, overhauls, and technical support.
Nothing’s certain yet, but Curtis is hoping that an operators forum in Victoria Sept. 13-14 will generate orders from current Twin Otter owners. The forum is attracting owners from places such as Tahiti, Denmark, the Caribbean, United Arab Emirates, Britain, and North America.
A new Twin Otter would cost about $3.2 million and the first one would be ready in 18 to 24 months, Curtis said.
company’s Turbo Beaver aircraft.
These workhorse planes have remained popular and are used in everything from ferrying tourists in the Maldives, to landing at an altitude of 14,000 feet in the Andes, to surveys in the Antarctic. Of the 844 built, 600 are still flying for about 200 owners, he said.
Another key component of setting up production is securing a repayable $3.8-million loan through the federal Technology Partnerships Canada program aimed at helping high-tech companies with engineering advances.
Finally, Curtis said, the business plan to build new Twin Otters would have to be approved by Viking Air’s board. Viking was started in Victoria and is now owned by Westerkirk Capital Inc. of Toronto.
In February, Viking obtained certificates from Bombardier giving it ownership of the design of seven de Havilland aircraft, including the Twin Otter. It already owned the exclusive rights to manufacture and distribute parts for de Havilland planes. Viking’s aim would be to build about 200 Twin Otters in the next decade in Victoria and Calgary, where Viking has a distribution centre, Curtis said.
The company has been busy. Staff numbers have jumped to 165 from 92 a year ago, said Robin Moore, Viking’s human resources manager.
Jamie MacDonald, 24, is a new hire, starting with Viking this year after taking the aircraft structures technician program with North Island College in Campbell River. The 10-month program began five years ago and is led by Ruedi Pletscher.
“It’s a fairly intensive program,” said MacDonald. “I enjoy airplanes. I think they are fascinating.”
He likes manufacturing parts for planes out of sheet metal and is enthusiastic about the company’s plans. “If we get to see a Twin Otter fly out of here, that will be a huge satisfaction.”
Technical jobs pay just over $13 an hour to more than $27 an hour, plus benefits, Moore said.
She is enthusiastic about North Island College graduates, saying four have been hired and another one starts next month. “They come into the workplace absolutely prepared for the environment and they have got the skills and they also have the attitude. The program really vets them out for their aptitude.”
Pletscher did a two-week practicum at Viking this summer to ensure students are learning what they will need to know on the job, she said. “Ruedi has an undying love for his program and for the aviation community.”
North Island grads work for companies building aircraft, as well as doing overhauls, modifications and repairs, Pletscher said in an earlier release, noting that demand for workers is greater than the number of graduates.
In Viking’s busy manufacturing plant, parts shine and paint gleams. Equipment includes a $250,000 machine that works like a robot, creating specialized shapes out of thick chunks of aluminum once specifications are fed into its computer. In another section, piston Beaver planes are converted to turbo.
Digging is expected to start within a month to kick off construction for a new $7-million, 60,000-square-foot manufacturing facility and head office for Viking, Curtis said. It is now housed in a 40,000-square-foot building that was built during the Second World War.

[Mike K.]

The airport has updated its website, btw. (http://www.victoriaairport.com)

Traffic stats for September 06 over Sept 05 shows an increase of 7%, and August 06 over August 05 shows an increase of 11%.

Overall traffic is up 6% over 2005.

[gumgum]

Your brackets around the web link have broken it making it difficult for lazy people like me to go to it. Now I have to copy and paste and that's just not cool.
Now granted it would have been less effort for me to simply do that, rather that write this paragraph, but I'm thinking of others...cuz I'm selfless like that.

[Mike K.]

Sometimes I really, really wonder about those Fairfield types...




:smt028

[Scaper]

We need an overpass at that Mctavish Rd. intersection there. With Ferry traffic and Airport traffice added to normal commuter and business traffic it's crazy.

I remember as part of the Commonwealth games promises this was to be made into a clover leaf.

Also they really need to build a parkade at the airport too.

And maybe one day bring out an LRT line to it and the Ferries.

[gumgum]

Your brackets around the web link have broken it making it difficult for lazy people like me to go to it. Now I have to copy and paste and that's just not cool.
Now granted it would have been less effort for me to simply do that, rather that write this paragraph, but I'm thinking of others...cuz I'm selfless like that.

I swear if one squints one's eyes to the point of a blur, what I wrote makes sense.

[Mike K.]

Airport traffic for Oct 06 has increased by 12% over Oct 05 traffic, with a 6.6% increase year to date over 2005.

I don't know if our new airport expansion can handle more than 2 million travellers a year but we'll be near that number by 2015 if traffic keeps climbing at around 5% per year.

http://victoriaairpo... ... mary_1.pdf

[G-Man]

I will be helping that traffic tomorrow!

[VicHockeyFan]

^ Where ya headed?