Chinese firm buys up 49% of Harbour Air

[Beefitarian]

I am referring to the future Chinese based aircraft, not local A/C. They will likely have their own maintenance over there because the cost would not be worth it to ferry it to Canada to get work done.

Agreed, planes going over there will probably never come back.

[fish4life]

Viking recently laid off if it were not for this deal its a possibility they could have gone under and then the Chinese could just buy the type certificate for cheap and make it anyway. I'd rather have the added value to the economy and to Viking now.

[JungleMonkey]

http://globalnews.ca/news/2061303/vikin ... -billions/

Viking air to sell 50 Twotters over 5 years.

With 4 pilot positions per aircraft with 2 probably at least requiring Canadian captains maybe even a few Canadian FO's not to mention the order for Viking, I'd say this is good for Canada hopefully so far. I just hope the future dockhands who want to go into FO on HA's 2 twin otters won't be effected.

I'm hoping this will lead to more overseas jobs available to Canadians. Like the following DHC-6 job ad for China.

http://www.avcanada.ca/forums2/viewtopi ... 7&t=103591

I have a feeling due to the high demand for pilots in China there will be a high turnover rate of future Chinese float turbine pilots, depending on the future economy of Asia and China.

+1

Well Said. There seems to be a lot of job loss worries but the truth is there should be lots more overseas jobs available for experienced guys at least until the Chinese are experts. I work overseas and now I've trained the locals and will soon be unemployed. I'm looking forward to working back in Canada.

[hangar3]

Viking recently laid off if it were not for this deal its a possibility they could have gone under and then the Chinese could just buy the type certificate for cheap and make it anyway. I'd rather have the added value to the economy and to Viking now.

Next up: Viking will sell to some Chinese company.
To penetrate the Chinese market and make sales there, the Chinese government will ask Viking to open a factory/cooperate with a Chinese firm.
End of the day, they will copy their technology/learn, as they have been doing with many other companies, and compete with them (you don't have to look far to see examples of this, see Bombardier "joint ventures" in China for example). Similarly, I also see Bombardier Aerospace getting sold to China as a realistic outcome in the future.

The Chinese are good at forcing entrants to their market to "give something in return" (see Airbus building factories for A320s in China so they can sell there). It ensures that they get the development too, in addition to the sales, and that's very smart. We should be doing the same, unfortunately we don't, and I don't understand why. This would entail, for example: Huawei (Chinese phone maker) building a factory in Canada to sell to Canadians, as opposed to just directly selling a product manufactured in China in Canada.

At this rate, they will just take our technology/knowledge/money, right out from us, and we will be left without competitive advantages.

Anyways, my 5 cents (seeing as pennies don't exist)

[kilpicki]

Agreed, getting the Chinese involved always ends up the better for them, their values are way different than N.Americans. Africa always comes to mind, they build new roads, hospital etc but always with Chinese labour and take the resources home with them. This time the resource is the -6. Do you really think they are going to buy 50 machines? I'd bet the bank not.

[goingnowherefast]

Just look at the Tupolev Tu-4...re-engined B-29. Communism doesn't provide any motivation to innovate, so they copy designs from capitalist countries.

There's a ton of examples posted above. China has been copying N. American and western European shit forever. Norinco M305, aka M14 clone. We buy our own copied technology from them! Poor Springfield Armories is trying to compete with clones that are going for 80% less. Imagine a Tupolev DHC(hina)-6-500 selling for 1 or 1.5 million!

[trey kule]

Chinese business philosophy never considers win-win. It is me win-you lose. Foreign firms seldom understand that.

Secondly,the lack of innovation is all about culture. The leader (manager) - employee relationship specifically.

Thirdly, Westerners, not really understanding the above two, but believing in unparalled opprtunities, are willing to believe whatever they are told. Now review the above part again. Can you see where this leads.

Lastly, lieing is an accepted part of business negotiations , and contracts, to be kind, are not respected in China.

But, no matter how many times most westerners are warned about this, they will chase a dream believing what they want...until reality sets in.

Despite all the BS, China is cranking out thousands of pilots a year. They are not short of pilots. There are hundreds if not thousands of unemployed 300 hour pilots. They are very short of experienced pilots, so for the time being there is opportunity for western pilots.
They send students overseas because all that talk of the low level air space being opened...just talk.
Except for a few test areas, low level airspace will not be opened until 2016-2017...,at the earliest.
And the flight controls are still all in place.

i wish harbour luck, and sitting on this side of the ocean, they are really going to need it.