Bombardier, now one of Canada's most successful companies, began life in slightly more humble surroundings, as a small manufacturer of snowmobiles, in a rural part of the province of Québec. It was started by Joseph-Armand Bombardier, a self-taught engineer and inventor born in 1907. He opened a garage to repair automobiles but in the winter when nobody could drive he developed and patented a snowmobile, capable of handling the heavy falls of snow for which eastern Canada is famous. His first model came out in 1937 but the War interrupted the growth of the business. However, he persevered and built a 12-seater snowmobile, used for passenger transport (including the school run), in 1942. After the war he continued, eventually (in 1959) making a two-seater snow vehicle. He named it the "Ski dog" as it was meant as a replacement for the huskies that were used to pull sleds. The man painting the name on the side of the first vehicles misspelt it as "Ski-Doo" and the name stuck!

Monsieur Bombardier died in 1964 but by then Bombardier had become a prosperous company. In 1970 the company moved into the railway industry by buying a Viennese company that made, not only snowmobiles (hence the purchase) but also railway and tram carriages. Further acquisitions followed and Bombardier is now a major force in the world railway market – see our sister website (www.wonderfulworldoftrains.com) for The Wonderful World of Trains.

In 1986 Bombardier broke into aviation with the purchase of Canadair, the government owned aircraft manufacturing company which had just recorded the biggest financial loss in Canadian history. Shortly afterwards two other ailing plane makers, Learjet and Short Brothers (of Belfast) were purchased and Bombardier Aerospace began its development.

Bombardier has retained a strong presence in the business jet market, developing the Learjet products including the highly-popular Challenger series and the long-range Global business jet. Its prime commercial aviation offering has been the Q series of turboprops, developed from the Dash 8 models previously made by de Havilland, and the CRJ narrow-bodied passenger jet.

The Q Series, based on the Dash 8, is a modern development of a basic workhorse of the sky. In the 1970s de Havilland Canada developed their Twin Otter into a four-engined prop airliner, with very low noise levels and good STOL capabilities, making it ideal for some little used airports around Canada. Yet using four engines was costly and airlines were looking for reduced fuel consumption, so a twin-engined prop was developed, and this became the Dash 8. It was first flown in 1983 with Pratt & Whitney engines that had been extensively tested on other aircraft. The Dash 8 - now evolved into the Q Series, has the lowest costs per mile of any commercial plane. Despite a problem with landing gear that caused two non-fatal accidents in 2007, the Q Series has sold over 850 models and although production is being phased out this has still been a success for Bombardier.

The CRJ programme (originally Canadair Regional Jet) was developed out of the Learjet Challenger, a large business jet, in 1987. The first planes, designated CRJ-100 even though the Canadair name had by then disappeared following the purchase by Bombardier, holding 52 passengers, were introduced in 1993 and were followed by series 200, 300 and so on, each one slightly bigger and better than its predecessor. The latest, unveiled in 2007, is the CRJ1000, capable of holding 100 passengers. All the CRJ series aircraft are narrow-bodied, single-aisle aircraft with two rear-mounted jets.

Bombardier has recently announced the go-ahead on a new series of passenger jets, the C-Series, a twin (wing-mounted) passenger jet capable of carrying up to 150 passengers up to 3,000 miles. The programme has taken some time to develop and has been stalled on a couple of occasions by financial and engineering problems, though has now been given the go-ahead for sales and development. The first models are expected in service in 2013 or 2014.