The Legault government is once again injecting money into Flying Whales, a company that wants to revolutionize the transport of heavy loads thanks to airships, but which is making skeptics. Quebec is granting $8 million to the company’s Quebec subsidiary and to Thales Canada for the development of control systems that will be integrated into the airship model developed by Flying Whales.
The Minister of the Economy, Pierre Fitzgibbon, made the announcement on Friday morning during a press conference given in Longueuil, on the occasion of the general meeting of Aéro Montréal, the organization representing the Quebec aerospace cluster.
He was present to announce an envelope of $47.45 million intended to support four projects in the Quebec aerospace sector and distributed to eight companies, including Airbus Canada, Pratt Whitney, Bombardier, Thales Canada and the French company Flying Whales.
The selected projects were selected following a call for projects launched in July 2022 by the government “to support the development of technologies related to the transport of tomorrow”, we detail in a press release.
In addition to the $8 million that the Quebec subsidiary Flying Whales will share with Thales Canada, the Quebec government has already granted more than $75 million in public funds to the airship company.
In 2019, the Legault government invested 15 million euros (about $22 million according to the exchange rate at the time) in the parent company of Flying Whales, based in France. Later, in June 2022, Quebec announced a new investment of 25 million euros ($33.5 million) in the parent company of Flying Whales, as well as 15 million euros ($20 million) in its Quebec subsidiary.
The Flying Whales company is working on the development of an airship model, the LCA60T, an aircraft with a capacity of 60 tons, intended for the transport of heavy or bulky loads – such as wind turbine blades or mining equipment – in landlocked or remote areas, such as the Far North of Quebec.