In early September our group had the opportunity to tour the Canadair plants in Montreal at Dorval. There, employees build Regional Jets, the Challenger Series, and critical sections of Boeing and Airbus aircraft.
One of the most modern production facilities in the world, Plant One is a half-million square-foot hangar. The building is so large, some employees use bicycles to move around the plant and there are actually street signs indicating where you are and where you are going!
Materials like aluminum, paper, kevlar and carbon fibre are machined, stretched, shaped, molded and bonded to each other to make the various pieces of the finished aircraft.
Using many new techniques and custom tools developed especially for Canadair production, a block of aluminum is shaved into a seat bracket, stretched into a door or shaped into a tail section. "Skin" sections are blasted smooth with carbon balls the size of poppy seeds.
Larger pieces of the fuselage are dipped into special chemical baths that eat away layers of the metal, reducing the weight of the section, without sacrificing strength.
In plant 3, the final assembly of aircraft like Regional Jets and the CL-415 Waterbomber takes place.
At this site hundreds of workers rivet, paint, wire and screw the pieces together, building the final product. It takes a lot of time, care and patience – some of the planes require more than 350,000 rivets to be individually placed!
From there, planes are purchased and sent to the finishing plant where the planes are detailed and custom decorated for the client.