The Most Desperately Needed Airplane Is Back in Production

In Europe, or at least in France, “Canadair” is synonymous with fire-fighting aircraft.

As a young kid i had an airfix model of a CL-215, painted in the yellow and red livery, i thought it was the coolest plane ever.

I remember as a young kid, it was the closest I could find to the Sea Duck from Tail Spin.

I think that the Canadair 215/415/515 series may be the only purpose-designed firefighting aircraft. The rest are all converted from military and airliners. Amphibious waterbombers are getting rare, old Catalinas are the other main ones.

Another famous De Havilland aircraft, the Beaver:

https://youtu.be/4wQjAB-jnI8

With commentary by Harrison Ford.

Sounds like this plane wasn't De Havilland to start with, they just bought the rights to build them.

Originally designed by Canadair which started life as another British subsidiary, Canadian Vickers, which was taken into state ownership in WW2 and renamed more patriotically.

Later sold to Electric Boat and organised under General Dynamics, then later sold to Bombardier.

The latter decide to leave the commercial aircraft market and focus on business jets. DHC acquired the rights to the CL_15 series in 2016.