Aerospace innovation to take off at Downsview Park

The aerospace industry is one of the most important contributors to Canada’s economy. Delivering $29 billion of GDP annually, and $27.7 billion in direct revenues, Canada currently has the second largest aerospace industry in the world (relative to GDP). 

But as global conditions continue to change, aerospace is reaching a critical tipping point. Investment in research and innovation must continue so that Canada can remain competitive as a nation in this important sector. 

The federal government recognized this back in 2011, when it initiated a review of policies and programs to develop a framework to help maximize the competitiveness of the industry. In 2012, the Aerospace Review report was released, recommending that “the government co-fund—with industry, provinces and academic and research institutions—the purchase and maintenance of up-to-date infrastructure required for aerospace training and research purposes.” 

In Ontario, the province’s major players in aerospace have come together to do just that—create a geographic area where industry and academia can co-locate for the purposes of increased collaboration. They’re calling it the Downsview Aerospace Innovation and Research (DAIR) Hub, which will be located at Downsview Park in Toronto. 

The aerospace hub initiative first began when Ann Buller, president of Centennial College, asked Andrew Petrou, director of strategic initiatives and external relations, to find a new campus location for the college’s aviation programs. “Our current campus is completely land-locked in Scarborough,” said Petrou. “When we receive a donated aircraft for students to work on, we have to cut it up into pieces, and then reassemble it, because we just don’t have the space to transport or store it as-is.”  

Petrou began meeting with industry stakeholders in aerospace to discuss Centennial’s predicament, starting with Bombardier, Canada’s world leader in the design and manufacturing of innovative aviation products. At the time, Bombardier wanted to partner with one institution to fulfill the training needs of its workforce and keep their skills up to date. 

Bombardier also had an existing industrial plant at Downsview Park, with surrounding land earmarked for further aviation development. 

“When I spoke with the vice president at Bombardier at the time about moving Centennial to Downsview, and having Centennial become Bombardier’s trainer of choice, he made it very clear to me that the potential for Downsview was not just about training, and that it should be an all-encompassing aerospace hub,” said Petrou. 

With the revelation that there was a huge opportunity to go further by involving other academic and industry partners, Petrou contacted David Zingg, P.Eng., director of the University of Toronto Institute of Aerospace Studies (UTIAS) and winner of the Engineering Medal for Research and Development at the Ontario Professional Engineers Awards in 2011, co-hosted by the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers and Professional Engineers Ontario. UTIAS was actually originally located at Downsview Park in 1949 and didn’t move to its current location at Dufferin Street and Steeles avenue until 1958. Needless to say, Zingg was fully on board to integrate UTIAS into plans for an aerospace hub at Downsview, and discuss moving the school back to its historical location.  

“The hub has come about because of a belief that we can do much better in research and development in Canada,” said Zingg. “Academia and industry are both very busy, and we currently just don’t interface enough. The more we integrate collaboration between academia and industry; there will be a cohesiveness in research that we’ve never seen before in this province.” 

As Petrou and Zingg discussed plans to move their campuses to Downsview, Zingg looped in Jonathan Hack, P.Eng., strategic and technology engineering (R&D), university and government relations at Bombardier Aerospace to get fully involved in the initiative. 

“There are more than 350 aerospace companies across various sub-sectors in Ontario—and the vast majority of these activities are concentrated in and around the Toronto region,” said Hack. “More than a dozen of Ontario’s 20 universities and 24 colleges offer a range of post-secondary aerospace education and training programs, and working together, Centennial, UTIAS and Bombardier started to get in touch with them to collaborate on this idea.”  

In addition to a space for academic institutions and industry to co-locate, plans for the hub include creating an aerospace research and innovation centre, which will bridge industry-academia partnerships. It will catalyze new research and development initiatives, primarily by offering a shared space to house offices of various industry, academic, and government organizations, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), experimental and test facilities, and space for technology demonstrators.

In 2013, the government of Ontario announced $26 million in support of Centennial College moving its aviation programs to the former de Havilland aircraft centre at Downsview. The DAIR consortium, now made up of 14 members from academia and industry—including Centennial, Bombardier and UTIAS as its founders, as well as Ryerson and York universities, Pratt & Whitney, Honeywell, SAFRAN, United Technologies, FlightSafety International and MDA, among others—see this as the first step towards the creation of the full aerospace hub. 

“Aerospace is a hugely important sector of the Ontario economy,” said Hon. Brad Duguid, Ontario’s minister of economic development, employment and infrastructure. “Almost every passenger plane in the world contains parts manufactured in Ontario. Premier Wynne’s announcement of $26 million to Centennial College toward its new aerospace training facility is a critical investment toward developing an aerospace research hub in this province. 

We are excited to see this project develop and remain committed to taking the measures necessary for our aerospace companies to capitalize on new opportunities in global aerospace markets.” 

• Physical centre of Toronto;

• Existing runway; 

• Rich aerospace history;

• Easy access to public transportation; 

• Large area of land available for development; and 

• Bombardier presence – current aerospace industry manufacturing taking place.

“Downsview is sacred ground to aerospace—it is where it started in Ontario,” said Petrou. In April 1929, William De Havilland purchased 70 acres of farmland along Sheppard Avenue in order to build de Havilland Aircraft of Canada (DHC), an aircraft manufacturing plant strategically positioned next to the railway. The factory was Canada’s largest supplier of military, civilian and government-owned aircraft in the 1930s, providing the Ontario Provincial Air Service and the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) with the majority of their aircraft.

Several record-breaking flights were made with aircraft assembled or modified at Downsview. “Those legacy buildings, which will be turned into Centennial’s aviation campus, were originally used to build mosquito fighter bombers for World War II,” said Hack. After the war, de Havilland Canada began to build its own aircraft designs uniquely suited to the harsh Canadian operating environment. 

In the 1980s, the federal government privatized DHC, and in 1986 sold the aircraft company to then Seattle-based Boeing. DHC was eventually acquired by Bombardier in 1992. 

Then in 1996, the RCAF base closed, and Bombardier now owns and manages the airfield, while crown corporation Parc Downsview Park Inc. manages the remainder of the lands around the runway’s fenced off area. 

Not only is Downsview historically significant to aerospace, it provides adequate space for research, testing and development of aircraft and equipment that most schools are lacking. “When you’re located in Toronto, space is an absolute premium,” said Paul Walsh, P.Eng., chair of Ryerson University’s department of aerospace engineering. “When student design teams or professors with particular initiatives want to work on research, it is a struggle to find any space in the city.  

“Downsview is an ideal solution to the problem. And by putting educational institutions in close proximity to industry, we get not only extra space but close ties. All of the colleges and universities focus on different niches, so we are not in competition from an academic perspective.”  

Hack says Bombardier, along with other leading aerospace companies, certainly recognize and value the talent that can come out of joint college-university programs, which breed well-rounded students that have both analytical and hands-on experience. The hub will make further collaborations between Centennial College and Ryerson or UTIAS, for example, that much easier.   

“The hub could start a whole new approach to aerospace education,” said Zingg. “There hasn’t been a lot of interaction between the colleges and universities, but with the hub, we could create bridging courses where Centennial students conduct research on UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles], and U of T students work on control systems and guidance. It will create more applied research collaborations.

“On top of that, being at the hub will help our education become so much more experiential. It will be so much easier for someone at Bombardier to come teach a course, for example.”  

With the hub acting as a technology consortium where education, institutions, government and industry are all co-located, students will have a completely unique and beneficial experience at school. 

“This is an example of the value of cluster development,” said Walsh. “Watching a Q400 aircraft take off as you’re entering a training facility—what could be better than that in aerospace education?”

Schools will potentially be able to arrange internships at Bombardier, where students are in class for the morning, then simply walk a half-kilometre to work with industry in the afternoon.  

“I think this hub has the potential to be a game changer for Ontario and Canada,” said Hack. “We want to retain our talent—keep them here by developing and patenting new technologies that will allow the industry in Canada to increase its competitiveness—which then allows them to stay, and grow in their careers. We’re confident that a fully-developed aerospace hub will accomplish that.” 

“There is a lot of demand for airplanes projected in the next 15 to 18 years—the industry expects a doubling of the number of passenger kilometres,” said Zingg. “Ontario can’t fall behind technologically, and expect to be able to compete with others in the space. Creating the DAIR hub will ensure aerospace has a bright future in this province and country.”