Viking Air CEO Dave Curtis with a leading edge spar for the Twin Otter wing. His company will assemble and sell the venerable plane again.
“We will be the only manufacturer of complete aircraft west of Ontario,” Viking president Dave Curtis said yesterday. “It is a huge deal.”
The new Twin Otter Series 400 planes are being built in batches, with the first six scheduled to be ready in early 2009, he said.
The new planes will look similar to the old Twin Otter — technical improvements are mainly internal and include a different engine for improved performance.
Excited employees cheered and clapped at news that production was starting again on the planes, which sell for a base price of $3.2 million. “Everybody is pretty pumped about it. Pumped and awestruck,” Curtis said. “We are getting e-mails from around the world congratulating us.”
http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/story.html?id=6f54303e-ec62-4c33-8537-5d395a946763&k=28621
Note: http://www.canada.com/v...
Twin Otters To Be Built In Western Canada
Posted on Friday, April 20 at 11:15 by BC MaryContributed By
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Glad to see this old bird getting a new lease on life.
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The two most common things in the universe are apparently Hydrogen and stupidity.
When I lived on one of the Gulf Islands, these sturdy
little planes were a welcome luxury if we wanted a quick link to the
outside world. Used to freak me out, though, having to leap off the dock
to climb aboard ... then the pilot would reach out and haul the little
ladder up and by golly it became the door! Then there we were, virtually
in the cockpit watching the pilot pumping those pedals just like we were
back in our kiddy cars again. Talk to the pilots and you'd realize how
much they loved the old planes ... the plane I remember best was 40
years old. My husband, an ex-paratroop commando, thought they were
wonderful too.
A happy story. I wish them well.