Bombardier

Bombardier snowmobile 1951

I gave some friends a ride to the airport this afternoon. They were flying on Horizon Airlines to LA. I thought this was a little odd because as far as I knew, Horizon only ran turbo-props, and I had never heard of a turbo-prop being used on such a long haul (800 miles) flight, at least not in the lower 48. Turns out Horizon is running a few jets made by, of all people, Bombardier, the same company that makes snowmobiles, or used to anyway. Seems that little old Bombardier has grown into such a huge conglomerate that a couple of years ago the small engine group broke off and became a separate company again.

Bombardier Q400

The jets are kind of an iffy proposition because of their high fuel consumption. For shorter flights, like up to 500 miles, the turbo-props are effectively just as fast. The turbo-props weakness is their high maintenance costs, or at least it used to be. Seems they have overcome that.

Some smaller twins, like the Aero Commander, that are normally fitted with turbo-prop engines are being fitted with converted automotive piston engines for better fuel economy. This was started by another Canadian company (Orenda).

Update August 2017 replaced one picture and corrected some links.