By Dayna Fedy-MacDonald | June 13, 2023 Estimated reading time 8 minutes, 46 seconds.
A new aviation company that specializes in delivering the engineering necessary to convert, complete, or modify various aircraft types has established itself in Montreal, Quebec, with big plans. Known as AIRHAWKE, the aerospace design and engineering company is building on the expertise of its recent acquisition, fellow Canadian business Berletex Aero Design. Today, the two companies operate under the AIRHAWKE banner with an overhauled vision for the future.
“We really loved the depth of experience that Berletex Aero had, especially in the VIP aircraft completions/business jet segment,” said AIRHAWKE CEO David Vanderzwaag. “We also appreciated the fact that their business model was well aligned with our approach at AIRHAWKE — having a small list of preferred recurring customers that we do a high volume of work for.
“What we saw in Berletex Aero Design was a great opportunity to build on what already existed,” added Vanderzwaag, who has been working alongside Berletex founder and VP of customer relations, Ross Bellingham (who remains with AIRHAWKE), to ensure customers receive the same level of service that Berletex has been recognized for.
Vanderzwaag noted that the acquisition has allowed AIRHAWKE to remain focused on the engineering behind completions and conversions for VIP aircraft while also diversifying into other segments like special mission and cargo. Moreover, AIRHAWKE is expanding on Berletex’s 25 years of experience in engineering design by adding capabilities in structural analysis and certification. Today, the newly formed company provides comprehensive engineering, design, and approvals to conversion and completion centers, as well as OEMs and MROs, enabling them to convert or complete aircraft for different roles.
While AIRHAWKE’s 3,000-square-foot facility in Montreal serves as headquarters, the company has begun building what it calls a “distributed workforce” to provide faster, more efficient service to its customers.
“We believe in this model where we can have engineers in different cities around Canada as well as in the U.S. and Europe,” shared Vanderzwaag. “That actually better suits our customer base because it allows us to be able to get a technician onsite faster and easier if they’re more local to the customer. And, as a side benefit, it actually allows us to pull from a greater pool of candidates.”
With its employees situated in different locales, AIRHAWKE had to get creative with software that would enable the team to collaborate amongst themselves, as well as with customers. Vanderzwaag said the company has implemented a software called Smartsheet that allows team members to have “complete visibility on every hour that goes into every program. It also allows us to interact directly with our customers regarding the status on each program,” which can be viewed via a dashboard.
When AIRHAWKE first began the acquisition of Berletex just over a year ago, it had a close-knit team of just 12 employees. Since then, the company has doubled that number to 25 employees, and has doubled in size from a revenue perspective, too. Taking the company’s rapid growth into consideration, Vanderzwaag said AIRHAWKE is working to ensure it has a stable foundation to keep building from — and will likely look to hire another five to 10 employees over the next year.
In the near term, AIRHAWKE is incorporating new technology into its design projects to expand its offerings; the company is taking advantage of augmented reality to optimize both time and budgets. Vanderzwaag said AIRHAWKE sees an opportunity within engineering to transition from the traditional two-dimensional (2D) approach that aircraft technicians are accustomed to, to a more advanced three-dimensional (3D) methodology.
Currently, many programs involve creating a 3D design, only to translate it back into 2D for manufacturing and installation purposes. While some companies are adopting a model-based definition (MBD) approach — which focuses solely on 3D design — technicians still rely on computer interfaces to assess the 3D design, explained Vanderzwaag.
“What we see going forward is an opportunity where that computer can basically be put inside a pair of Microsoft HoloLens glasses,” he told Skies. “Our intention with this is that our customers can actually put on the HoloLens glasses and see our design in place on the aircraft where it’s intended to be. They’d be able to walk around and observe that design, see how it’s going to work within that space and validate it before we actually go to production and installation.”
Vanderzwaag said this type of software is not well suited to the aviation industry yet, “so there are some hoops we’ve had to jump through.” However, he shared that the company is making “huge strides” in terms of rolling the technology out, which AIRHAWKE hopes to do with an initial customer in the coming months.
“The first stage will be more so for design review and validation,” noted Vanderzwaag. “Long term, we see an opportunity where this could eliminate 2D drawings and actually save our end customer all that time and money involved in having us create those drawings.”
Currently, AIRHAWKE is heavily involved in a VIP completion project with an Airbus A330 aircraft, “which gives you a sense of the scale of work that we do,” said Vanderzwaag. The company is also working on the engineering design for an end-to-end cabin completion on an Airbus A320neo, as well as a project to reconfigure the interior of a Bombardier Global business jet.
In combination with its acquisition announcement, the company launched its new website in early June, which reflects the AIRHAWKE brand and vision to modernize the aircraft conversion and completions segment.
