Charles Eric McConachie

Charles Eric B. McConachie, B.A.Sc., M.S., was born on April 8, 1927 in Edmonton, Alberta. His education began there, and he continued his studies at the University of British Columbia, where he graduated with a B.A.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering in 1949. He attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology to obtain a Masters degree in Aeronautical Engineering in 1950. He completed course work towards a Ph.D. at Stanford University in 1952, and while living in London, attended London University in 1953, where he studied elements of Air Law.

In 1953 McConachie was hired by CP Air, Vancouver, as Assistant Director Flight Development. Here he served as an engineering and performance analyst when CP Air acquired the DC-6B and Convair 240. He participated in airline service engineering and operations assignments associated with the introduction by CP Air of de Havilland's Comet IA, the world's first jet airliner. CP Air had purchased the Comet, and McConachie spent two years with the engineering department at de Havilland in Britain closely following the developments of the Comet II. CP Air's orders were canceled following deferment of the program for an indefinite period.

He returned to Canada in the fall of 1954 to work on CP Air's Bristol Britannia operations, including simulation flights of the turboprop airliner over polar routes. He provided technical representation at the manufacturer's factory and was Technical Assistant to Vice President Operations and Director of Flight Development.

McConachie moved to Montreal in 1958 to become General Manager, Marketing, for Canadair Ltd. His responsibilities included all sales engineering, operations engineering, market planning and contract administration. All commercial products were included in his list of responsibilities. He was named Assistant to Executive Vice President Sales and Finance. During his nine years at Canadair, he was directly involved in development and marketing of the CL-540, CL-41 Tutor, the CL-44D4 Swing Tail cargo aircraft. He was in charge of marketing the CL-91 Dynatrac/Army XM-571 and CL-89 surveillance drone, as well as the CL-84 Dynavert, a tilt-wing aircraft which could fly conventionally as well as climb and descend vertically, and hover.

His last major project at Canadair was the concept development and marketing of the CL-215 Water Bomber. He sold the first 30 of these aircraft to Quebec and France. He was also responsible for product support, including spare parts, training and technical representatives for over four hundred personnel involved. Export licences were often problematic: one example that McConachie found difficult was the barrier to the CF-5 Freedom Fighter being sold in Brazil. This prompted him to form his own consulting company, Aviation Planning Services Ltd. (APS) in Montreal in 1967. As President and Director, he was responsible for the worldwide activities of the company in the airline, airport, aerospace industry and governmental planning areas. Over a period of twenty years, APS completed over 400 separate aviation studies for 100 different clients in the airline industry, manufacturing, governments and financial institutions. The company performed studies in 30 countries outside of North America. It was also directly involved with the planning and/or development of approximately 100 airports in various countries.

In 1986, when Bombardier bought Canadair from the Government of Canada, he suggested to the company that it take Canadair's successful Challenger executive jet and stretch it into a passenger airliner. He referred to it as a Regional Jet, a name he registered in July 1986.

During 1986-87 McConachie's company was asked by Canadair to investigate the potential market for a regional jetliner. APS undertook a market projection, using material from discussions with over 100 regional and major airlines and based on sales of 400-500 aircraft at $13 million each by the year 2001. The preliminary design concept in 1987 was for a 50 passenger aircraft with a range of 1600 km and cruise speed of 785 km/h. In October of that year, the marketing work initiated by APS for the Regional Jet concept was accepted by Bombardier which authorized the design and development of a Regional Jetliner, the Canadair Regional Jet. McConachie was invited to rejoin Canadair in 1988 to begin technical and marketing studies. He became the first employee hired for the RJ program and APS provided the Sales Engineering requirements as they had done up to that time.

His responsibility as Vice President Marketing was to organize the marketing program, including sales, contracts and customer service. He took the concept to the Farnborough Air Show in England in 1988 and found interest in the jetliner from, among others, Deutsche Luft Transport. The company aimed to be the first customer at launch. McConachie was responsible for the sales of 139 aircraft through Letters of Intent, with deposits, from 1989 to mid '91, with a value of about $3 billion U.S. At that time the APS forecast for the RJ program was 436 aircraft over 10 years. That total has been greatly exceeded with over 1200 RJ's delivered to date to airlines around the world. The introduction of the RJ has been claimed by some to be one of the most significant events in the first 100 years of aviation.

In 1991, following the RJ's successful test flights, McConachie returned to APS. In 1994 he formed a new company, AvPlan Inc., to continue his consulting work in the aviation and aerospace industry, mainly in the US, Central America and Europe. Some of his projects include: development of de-icer fluid collection and disposal system at Dorval and Mirabel Airports, Montreal;  market assessment of a remote aircraft ice contamination detection system with Spar Aerospace; assistance to a Costa Rican group in  developing a new privatized air cargo terminal and study of a new airport location for the capital of Costa Rica, San Jose; technical study for a new 37-seat turbofan airliner for Dassault, a major airframe manufacturer; development of a conceptual program and business plan for a new regional airline, Air Capitale Inc.; forecast of market shares of new aircraft, ranging from 30 to 90 seats, for the period 1998-2018 for GE Engines; assistance to loading bridge manufacture on system for regional aircraft, Dew Systems; development of low cost systems to control erosion at large airports resulting from operations of the Airbus 380, the largest passenger aircraft built to date. This project is on-going. After 52 years in the business, he was still involved in aviation at the time of his death in 2012.

McConachie was a Fellow of the Canadian Aeronautics and Space Institute (CASI), member of Royal Aeronautical Society, Aerospace Industries Association of Canada (AIAC), and Air Transport Association of Canada (ATAC). He presented papers at technical association meetings around the world, including Farnborough, Paris and Singapore Air Shows. He was presented the CD Howe Award in 1996 for "achievement in the fields of planning, policy making and overall leadership in Canadian aeronautics and space activities."

Eric McConachie died on May 24, 2012 in Chateauguay, Quebec.

Eric B. McConachie was inducted as a Member of Canada's Aviation Hall of Fame at ceremonies held in Edmonton, Alberta in 2005.