The Canadian federal and Quebec provincial governments together will invest C$685 million ($544 million) in projects at Bell, CAE and Pratt & Whitney Canada to develop technologies supporting the electrification and decarbonization of aviation.
The federal government will provide C$440 million from its Strategic Innovation Fund, with another C$245 million in loans coming from the provincial government’s economic Development Fund through Investment Quebec. The funds will support projects totaling $2 billion in investments in Canada, including close to $1.6 billion in Quebec.
Additionally, the Canadian federal government will make C$92.5 million in funding available over three years to small and medium enterprises in Quebec under its C$250 million post-pandemic Aerospace Regional Recovery Initiative, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in Montreal on July 15.
Pratt & Whitney Canada (P&WC) is to work with De Havilland Aircraft of Canada to fly a hybrid-electric propulsion demonstrator in 2024 based on the Dash 8-100 regional turboprop. The C$163 million project cost will be supported by almost C$70 million in funding from the federal and provincial governments.
Up to C$200 million in federal funding will be provided to support Bell Textron Canada’s Viridis project to develop and commercialize hybrid-electric helicopter technology. The provincial government will provide C$75 million in loans to support the C$825 million project.
Details are sparse, but Viridis will build on Bell Canada’s development work on the Electrically Distributed Anti-Torque (EDAT) system and Autonomous Pod Transport unmanned cargo aircraft. EDAT was demonstrated on a Bell 429 light twin helicopter.
The governments also will provide C$240 million over five years—C$190 from Ottawa and C$150 million from Quebec—toward CAE’s C$1 billion Project Resilience to develop digitally immersive technologies, data analytics and artificial intelligence for simulation and training.
CAE said Project Resilience will position the company to expand into new markets such as advanced air mobility and includes investing in retrofitting its large fleet of light trainers with electric aircraft to reduce its carbon footprint.
P&WC’s hybrid-electric program is a successor to Project 804, which was launched in 2019 and brought together Collins Aerospace and Pratt & Whitney to develop a flight demonstrator based on the Dash 8. Ground testing is targeted for 2022.
The megawatt-scale hybrid-electric power train will replace one of the Dash 8-100’s two Pratt & Whitney PW121 turboprops. The Collins-developed electric motor and controller will be powered by a turbogenerator and a battery system.
Pratt & Whitney is targeting a 30% reduction in fuel burn and CO2 emissions compared to a modern regional turboprop airliner.
Changes from the Project 804 configuration include a larger nacelle air intake for cooling and relocation of the battery packs from the underfloor cargo compartment to external blister fairings on either side of the lower fuselage.
Project 804 planned to use a novel thermal engine to be developed by P&WC. Pratt & Whitney is not revealing details of the engine to be used in the Dash 8 demonstrator except that is optimized for hybrid-electric operation.
“De Havilland Canada’s investment positions the company as the first manufacturer of regional aircraft collaborating in the development of hybrid-electric propulsion technology,” the company said, adding, “we anticipate that the technology will be scalable for operation on larger Dash 8 aircraft models.”
De Havilland Canada will support integration of the hybrid-electric power train into the Dash 8-100, design the modified nacelle structure and cockpit interfaces, and conduct the flight tests and demonstration program under an experimental flight permit from Transport Canada.
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