War, war, that’s no reason to pollute! This joke inspired by a great classic of Quebec cinema rather effectively sums up the backstory of the 2022 edition of the Farnborough Air Show, which is taking place this week in England and where more than one Canadian company is trying to leave its brand… green, ideally.
The commitments made this week at Farnborough by the main leaders of the global aerospace industry seem at first glance in complete contradiction. Boeing, Honeywell, Bell Textron and others are vying ingenuity to design tomorrow’s aircraft that can take off vertically, travel huge distances non-stop — and perhaps even unmanned — to deliver a tough battle the enemy no matter on which planet he is.
When the main buyer is the very greedy and extremely wealthy American army, anything goes. Especially since the other half of the industry, that of civil aviation, is struggling a bit these days. Two years of COVID-19 have disrupted demand as well as growth and will dampen airline enthusiasm for the next 20 years, Boeing and Airbus said on the first day of the UK show.
Greener Canadian Aviation
The airline industry must also come to terms with the desire, generally imposed by governments around the world, to limit its polluting emissions. Non-military aircraft only generate a little less than 3% of greenhouse gases, which seems modest, but which is huge considering the size of this industry compared to others.
Canada can reconcile aerospace’s trade and climate targets, promises federal Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, François-Philippe Champagne, who was in Farnborough to encourage Canadian companies present. on the spot.
“How to decarbonize planes? It plays into Canada’s advantages. Montreal is already the third city in the world for the construction of aircraft. We produce green aluminum, green steel, we talk about synthetic fuel and green hydrogen. We really need to highlight what can be done in Quebec and Ontario to make the industry greener,” the minister said on a conference call from Farnborough on Tuesday.
Mr. Champagne particularly underlined the importance of CAE’s presence at the British show to illustrate its position. The Montreal equipment manufacturer presented one after the other new training simulators to prepare the pilots of tomorrow for the arrival of these vertical take-off aircraft that have been the dream of the military sector for decades, then an electric conversion kit for Piper Aircraft brand aircraft that it uses in other training programs. CAE and EasyJet also presented a partnership to encourage more women who wish to enter aviation to become pilots.
CAE says it has invested a billion dollars in innovation over five years with Ottawa and Quebec to develop its technologies. It promises to work with all of Canadian industry, including OEMs and educational and research institutions.
Quebec at the forefront
As Minister Champagne pointed out, Quebec is particularly well placed to take advantage of the revival of aerospace. “How do we decarbonize the industry? We will have to decarbonize planes, in particular hydrogen, but we will also have to decarbonize the supply chains of major manufacturers, and Canada can play a big role in this. »
Since Montreal receives 75% of all the investment made in the country in terms of research and development in the aerospace sector, this means that the Quebec metropolis is well positioned to take advantage of this green shift, assures the President and CEO of ‘Aero Montreal, Suzanne Benoît.
“Innovation is the sinews of war in our sector, and we do a lot of it in Montreal. Quebec also has a lot of talent: we know how to fly planes,” says the one who expects significant investments both to develop clean technologies and to assemble future military planes ordered by Ottawa. “We’re asking the government to be greedy in its demands” for Canadian content for its planes, says Ms.me Benedict.
The representative of the Quebec aerospace cluster indeed notes that Farnborough is trying to play the ecological card while continuing to develop the military heritage of the industry. Fighter jets crisscrossed the English skies even as the country endured its hottest days on record.
Present on site, Suzanne Benoît prefers to remain optimistic. “At least the technology is evolving and the industry has clearly announced its intention to be carbon neutral in 2050. Civil aviation and military aviation are communicating vessels; it is certain that there will be a transfer of technologies from one to the other”, she says. Because whatever our dreams, the armies are not about to disappear from the world aerospace portrait.