Orenda Aerospace has selected Truro, Nova Scotia, as the site for an engine manufacturing and aircraft remanufacturing plant. The Canadian company which will produce the OE-600-series vee-8 piston engine will be known as Orenda Recip, and it will be the first private aerospace company at Debert Airport, a former Canadian Forces base near Truro.
The Nova Scotia Economic Development and Tourism department is providing C$9.3 million ($6.6 million) in funds repayable from royalties on sales, while the Canadian Department of Industry, under its Technology Partnership Canada (TPC) programme, is supplying C$8.4 million, also in royalty-repayable funds. Orenda will contribute C$14.4 million.
Orenda forecasts a worldwide market for more than 10,000 engines, and plans to install the powerplants on candidate airframes which it hopes to remanufacture at the Debert plant. The Orenda series will have power outputs ranging from 375kW to 560kW (500-750hp). A firm order for 140 engines and installation kits, worth C$20 million, has been received from Stevens Air of Greenville, South Carolina, for retroÌt installation on Raytheon Beech King Air 90s.
Orenda Recip has begun hiring staff, and plans to increase its workforce from 26 this year to 110 within five years.
Orenda is a subsidiary of Toronto-based Magellan Aerospace, which also owns Fleet Aerospace. Fleet, meanwhile, has received a repayable investment of C$3.25 million from Technology Partnerships Canada to secure a contract from Hyundai, of South Korea, to produce wing components for the McDonnell Douglas MD-95.
Source: Flight International
