For the first time since 1988, a new-manufacture production Twin Otter took to the Canadian skies as Viking Air flight tested the first conforming series-400 aircraft at its final assembly facility in Calgary in February. The Victoria, B.C.-based manufacturer acquired the type certificates for the former de Havilland Canada DHC-1 Chipmunk through DHC-7 Dash 7 from Bombardier in 2006.
While Viking has been in operation for 40 years, producing parts and providing support for the approximately 1,300 former de Havilland Canada aircraft still flying, returning the versatile turboprop twin to production was never part of the company’s original business plan, said Robert Mauracher, Viking’s vice president of business development. “When we did acquire all the type certificates, we sat down about a year afterward and said, ‘There looks like an opportunity here,’” he told AIN. The company then commissioned an industry study that found a global market for up to 480 new Twin Otters over the next decade. According to Mauracher, even after conservatively slicing that estimate nearly in half–to 250 aircraft over the next 10 years–the company’s board gave the green light to restart production.
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