Paint Maintenance Partnership Reached for Canadian Aircraft

Aircraft maintenance and repair group Flying Colours Corp. (Peterborough, Ontario, Canada) recently agreed to a long-term paint partnership with MHI Canada Aerospace Inc. (MHICA) (Mississauga, Ontario, Canada), anticipated to last five years. 

Under the terms of the partnership, the maintenance and repair group will paint more than 40 center fuselage sections of Bombardier Global 5000/6000 aircraft each year at the company’s Peterborough facility. MHICA, a group company of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (Tokyo, Japan), is a Tier 1 manufacturer of major aircraft structures and assemblies.

To support the agreement, Flying Colours has invested over $1 million to construct a new paint facility specifically designed for the project. The unit adds over 4,000 sq. ft. (371.6 m2) to the existing paint shop footprint, and it features two separate paint bays designed to allow easy access and egress of the fuselage component. It also incorporates a management and oversight office, as well as storage for the required primers, paint, and coatings. 

Each shrink-wrapped fuselage is delivered to the facility from MHI. On arrival, the fuselage undergoes a pre-paint inspection before an eight-stage process begins that includes preparing the fuselage, priming for paint work, applying corrosion inhibitors and fuel barriers, and final paint spray application. Upon completion, the inspected fuselage is shipped back to the aircraft manufacturer, where it becomes part of the fuselage assembly line.

Flying Colours was selected for the project owing to its experience working across the Global family of business aircraft. It is also an authorized service facility and preferred completion center for aerospace company Bombardier (Montreal, Quebec, Canada). 

“We have worked with this aircraft for more than 10 years, which has given MHI Canada the confidence in Flying Colours’ ability to fulfill the required mandate,” says John Gillespie, president of the repair company. “This is an exciting and significant new business activity for us. We have invested significant time, money, and planning into making this project a long-term success.”