De Havilland Aircraft of
Canada Limited (DHC)
is a Canadian aircraft
manufacturer that
has produced numerous
aircraft models since its
inception including the
popular Dash 8.
The company's primary
facilities were located in
the Downsview area
of Toronto,
Ontario for
many years; in 2022, it was
announced that it would
relocate primary
manufacturing to De
Havilland Field, under
development near Calgary,
Alberta. The
aircraft types currently in
production or planned for
production include the DHC-6
Twin Otter, DHC-8
Dash 8, and DHC-515
Firefighter.
DHC 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 under
Prime Minister Brian
Mulroney 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 after cumulative losses
of US$636 million over five
years under Boeing.
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 Dash
8 and Q400 program,
the last DHC designs still
held by Bombardier, along
with the rights to the DHC
name and trademark. The
deal, which closed on 3 June
2019 following regulatory
approval, brought the entire
Canadian 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.
In the summer of 2021, DHC
stopped production at its
Downsview site and
officially closed it in the
summer of 2022 at the end of
its lease. In September
2022, DHC announced its
plans to construct a new
manufacturing facility, De
Havilland Field, in Wheatland
County, Alberta. The new
facility is intended to
merge its two manufacturing
facilities and produce the Twin
Otter and Dash
8 planes, as
well as the new DHC-515 firefighting
aircraft. First production
at the new site is planned
to begin in 2025.
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