Since this is a 'General Discussion', a size comparison between the CL-215T/415 and Hynaero
Fregette-100.
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https://hynaero.com/en/This outfit is very small but these guys seem to have some game.
President & Public Affairs is David Pincet. He comes from the
Ministère de l´Intérieur where he was director of air operations at the
Sécurité Civile. So, plenty of Canadair experience there.
Technical & Industrial Director is Cédric Savineau - based in Bordeau but is either Canadian or spent time in Canada (with the CLI). Things nautical seem to be his major interest ... so, relevant to flying boats.
Sales/marketing guy Christophe Laurent - still also a Sales Director at StandardAero - has a bunch of customer support background. Most recently, that was for the highly relevant Bombardier CL215, CL215T, and 415. Prior experience with Dassault and Embraer. Before that, Laurent was an AVS Tech in the Armée de l'Air.
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https://www.altitudeaero.com/Altitude Aerospace is small but seems to have been on a bit of a hiring binge over the last year or so - both engineers and marketing types.
Altitude president and founder is mechanical engineer Nancy Venneman. Prior to 2005, she was at Bombardier on CRJ structural mods engineering. Her father was also a Canadair/Bombardier guy. Not sure who the Dad was but he was said to be involved in the development of the
Challenger 600, CRJ 100, and
Global 5000.
While Venneman was on CRJs, she encountered Fadi Al-Ahmed whom she later hired as Altitude's VP and chief engineer. Al-Ahmed was at Bombardier (1999-2007) having begun with Canadair Defense Systems (1992-99) on their CF-5 & CF-18 programmes.
The French (Toulouse) side is rather less impressive. Managing Director/CEO is Laetitia Chaynes who is also in insurance and finance (incl. president of a fund management firm). AFAIK, Mme. Chaynes has no prior aerospace connections.
One of the Toulouse-based aerospace engineers was Dany Daoust who became head of Portland, Oregon-based Altitude subsidiary, Altech Aerospace (which laid off its entire workforce during the Covid shut-down but is now rebuilding).