De Havilland Canada’s new generation of its water-bombing planes won’t be delivered to Europe before 2027
Production of a workhorse firefighting plane that is eagerly awaited in Europe to combat worsening mega-blazes fuelled by climate change is running “a little bit” behind schedule, and the first will not be delivered before the fire season of 2027, manufacturer De Havilland Canada said Tuesday.
The first plane won’t be delivered to Europe before 2027, says the manufacturer, attributing the delay to contract negotiations with European governments over the “complicated engineering” of the sturdy, amphibious aircraft that can scoop up more than 6 tons of water from seas and lakes to be dumped at low altitude on blazing forests by their daredevil pilots.
Raging forest fires last year left European firefighters short of the planes they needed. A January meeting of European ministers to take stock of lessons from the 2022 fire season heard that a shared European pool of disaster resources couldn’t fulfill requests for airborne assistance “for several days, reaching 10 aircraft missing during the worst day of the season,” according to meeting minutes published by the EU’s executive commission.
About 225 Canadair firefighting planes were produced since the 1960s. They’ve become essential for firefighters in France and elsewhere. But production of the water-bombers stopped in 2015, and manufacturer Bombardier then sold the program the following year to De Havilland. The company’s relaunch of the upgraded DHC-515 responded to demand for replacements and larger fleets.
The initial production run of 22 planes for the EU will last into 2029 or 2030 – and two of the planes are earmarked for France, Sweeney said. “It’ll start slow because bringing aircraft back into production … you can’t do it overnight,” he said.
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