Limosa teams up with BAC Aerospace to begin its type certification with Transport Canada Civil Aviation

Limosa has become the lat­est Cana­di­an eVTOL air­craft devel­op­er to start the type cer­ti­fi­ca­tion process with Trans­port Cana­da Civ­il Avi­a­tion (TCCA).

Led by Dr Hamid Hami­di, the Mon­tre­al-based start­up is build­ing the Limo­Con­nect, an eight-seater eVTOL + eCTOL air­craft, and will be sup­port­ed on its jour­ney by air­craft cer­ti­fi­ca­tion con­sult­ing part­ner BAC Aero­space.

An ini­tial air­craft pro­gram brief­ing to Trans­port Cana­da on the Limo­Con­nect was recent­ly held, with the near-term goal to agree on the G‑1 cer­ti­fi­ca­tion basis for its spe­cif­ic air­craft design. Limosa plans to cer­ti­fy and enter its air­craft into the mar­ket in 2028.

Hami­di said: “eVTOL air­craft are brand new type aero­space vehi­cles and being devel­oped to open up a new mode of green trans­porta­tion for civil­ians.

“When devel­op­ing a new type design, devel­op­ers must work close­ly with the reg­u­la­tors since the very begin­ning in order to set­up the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion basis and means of com­pli­ance. This is to clear the strate­gies required as ear­ly as pos­si­ble, as no cer­ti­fi­ca­tion code is avail­able at this time, and oth­er reg­u­la­tors such as FAA and EASA are work­ing in dif­fer­ent cer­ti­fi­ca­tion process­es.”

“We are very excit­ed by this part­ner­ship as BAC Aero­space brings decades of expe­ri­ence in cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of air­crafts as a Cana­di­an design approval firm and can con­nect us with the net­work of rep­re­sen­ta­tives and del­e­gates from Trans­port Cana­da Civ­il Avi­a­tion.

BAC Aero­space is led Chris Baczyn­s­ki, who is CEO and a prin­ci­pal con­sul­tant. He is a for­mer TCCA Nation­al Air­craft Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion expert, Trans­port Cana­da Design Approval Rep­re­sen­ta­tive and an elect­ed Fel­low of the Roy­al Aero­nau­ti­cal Soci­ety. BAC Aero­space is already engaged in the devel­op­ment and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of elec­tric air­craft propul­sion, both in Cana­da and the USA.

With more than two decades of expe­ri­ence in gen­er­al avi­a­tion, large trans­port air­craft, and rotor­craft Type Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, Baczyn­s­ki is also a mem­ber of sev­er­al inter­na­tion­al tech­ni­cal com­mit­tees devel­op­ing eVTOL tech­nolo­gies along­side rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Joby Avi­a­tion, Archer, and Wisk.

He added: “By com­plet­ing the pro­to­type design with cer­ti­fi­ca­tion require­ments in mind, Limosa will avoid the risk of expen­sive major redesign lat­er on. Being a Cana­di­an com­pa­ny, Limosa is well poised to take advan­tage of con­sid­er­able resources of our domes­tic aero­space sec­tor and the pro­fes­sion­al­ism and expe­ri­ence of our reg­u­la­tor, Trans­port Cana­da Civ­il Avi­a­tion.”

In addi­tion to con­tribut­ing to the elec­tri­fi­ca­tion of the avi­a­tion indus­try, Limosa aims to adopt its air­craft for dif­fer­ent mis­sion capa­bil­i­ties and use exist­ing air­port facil­i­ties, pri­or to the future emer­gence and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of ded­i­cat­ed ver­ti­port infra­struc­ture for eVTOL air­craft.

Ear­li­er this month, Limosa announced key part­ner­ships for its Limo­Con­nect air­craft. Ger­man seat devel­op­er AUTOFLUG will sup­ply crash-safe­ty seat­ing sys­tems, while Air­borne have agreed to pro­duce the Limo­Con­nect air­craft pro­to­type air­frame, in par­al­lel to design­ing auto­mat­ed man­u­fac­tur­ing lines and sup­port­ing Limosa’s indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion from pro­to­type through to ser­i­al pro­duc­tion.