Dufour Aerospace opens new office in Canada and plans to hire software engineers to work on its Aero2 and Aero3 aircraft

Swiss eVTOL start­up Dufour Aero­space is estab­lish­ing a base of oper­a­tions in Mon­tre­al, Cana­da to devel­op the next gen­er­a­tion of eVTOL air­craft, based on the tilt-wing rotor mech­a­nism.

The com­pa­ny will ini­tial­ly hire up to 30 soft­ware engi­neers focused on devel­op­ing sys­tems for its Aero2 and Aero3 eVTOL air­craft. Flight test­ing of the Aero2 has already begun in Zurich. 

Thomas Pfam­mat­ter, CEO of Dufour Aero­space, said: “Cana­da and Mon­tre­al have such a his­toric pedi­gree in both avi­a­tion and soft­ware engi­neer­ing that it is a nat­ur­al choice for Dufour Aero­space which seeks to col­lab­o­rate with the local ecosys­tem to grow its local oper­a­tions.

Him­self a long-time air ambu­lance pilot and busi­ness exec­u­tive, Pfam­mat­ter added: “We were ini­tial­ly inspired by the Canadair Dynavert CL-84, where Cana­di­an engi­neers estab­lished both the aero­dy­nam­ic prin­ci­ples of tilt-wing flight and built pro­to­types with hun­dreds of hours of flight time” 

Both the Aero2 and Aero3 fea­ture a tilt-wing that com­bines the best of heli­copters and air­planes: ver­ti­cal take-off and land­ing on even the small­est spots and ener­gy-effi­cient longer-range flight at high speeds. 

The Aero2 is designed for unmanned, remote­ly pilot­ed oper­a­tions, while the Aero3 is a manned, 8‑seat air­craft designed specif­i­cal­ly for air ambu­lance and Heli­copter Emer­gency Med­ical Ser­vices (HEMS) oper­a­tions. 

Jas­mine Kent, CTO of Dufour Aero­space, said: “Mon­tre­al boasts high-qual­i­ty uni­ver­si­ties and a strong com­mu­ni­ty of soft­ware engi­neers. Fur­ther­more, Cana­da is the sec­ond-largest glob­al heli­copter mar­ket with a strong back­ground in advanced soft­ware engi­neer­ing, so the local tal­ent com­mu­ni­ty is well qual­i­fied to help us build tomorrow’s fleet of air ambu­lances.”

Stéphane Paquet, Pres­i­dent and CEO of Mon­tréal Inter­na­tion­al, added: “With more than one out of six­ty work­ers employed in the local aero­space indus­try, Greater Mon­tre­al is a unique loca­tion to devel­op tomorrow’s air ambu­lance. 

“Dufour is inspired by the Canadair Dynavert, an air­craft devel­oped in the 1960s by a Mon­tréal-based pio­neer, a new project which is not only a tes­ta­ment to our city’s lega­cy to the avi­a­tion indus­try world­wide, but also to our grow­ing IT ecosys­tem which is essen­tial for its advance­ment.”

Yes­ter­day, Blue­ber­ry Avi­a­tion announced that it would pro­vide mar­ket­ing advi­so­ry and place­ment sup­port to Dufour Aero­space as part of a new long-term com­mer­cial part­ner­ship, and will also acquire 100 Aero2 and 100 Aero3 eVTOL air­craft.