Hautes Alpes Développement

WELCO INDUSTRIES designs, manufactures and markets air conditioning and cooling systems for aircrafts at a world-wide level.

Innovation is not limited to design and manufacture activities: it can also apply to maintenance activities.

Among businesses involved in the maintenance and repair field, we will mention MTA AVIATION, HELICOPTERES DE FRANCE, the HELI CHALLENGE group, ACV AERO SERVICES, and ICARIUS AEROTECHNICS. This last company has filed a patent in 2002 for the re-motoring of Pilatus airplanes.

These companies are representative of the high level of know-how and technical skills that the actors of the Hautes-Alpes’ aeronautics industry can offer, allowing them to export their products and services to Europe and beyond.

HELICES HALTER is worldwide known for its high technical capacity in the custom design and manufacturing of propellers for drones and UAVs. The company developed its own propeller design and simulation program which allows it to optimize multiple parameters such as diameter, weight, take-off thrust, cruise fuel consumption, sound level, radar signature and more in compliance with customers’ specifications. It offers a wide range of products, from low-cost two-bladed wood-composite to high performance three-bladed carbon propellers.

BACKBONE—a distinguished partner and distributor for France of the manufacturer of the most popular paramotor engine in the world—designs and manufactures a whole range of products for paramotors. The company gained international recognition in 2008 by operating a 10,000 km Monaco-Beijing paramotor flight with engines fuelled by ethanol, a green source of energy. The company continues its R&D effort on green fuels and motor oils. Besides, Backbone is an equal opportunity employer, concordant with its views on sustainable development.

The Guil et Durance gliding club at Saint-Crépin airfield acquired a glider launch winch that fits both gliding and sustainable development needs: winch launch reduces sound nuisances and carbon dioxide emissions as well as launch costs and improves the launch rate.

ELECTRAVIA, a company specialized in electric engines for leisure aviation, has developed high-performance reliable, silent, cheap-to-run, and clean homologated electric engines. Leveraging its 2007 world record of the first electric-powered airplane flight, the company carries its innovation strategy forward and markets electric-powered systems for light airplanes (engines, specifically designed propellers, and batteries).

Two companies located in the Hautes-Alpes, BERINGER and ICARIUS AEROTECHNICS, have joined forces with SOLUTION F and CMRT (a research laboratory of the Centrale Marseille Engineer School) to develop TWALS, a collaborative project on innovative tail wheel antilift braking systems for light airplanes. TWALS aims to improve the security of light airplane landing. The project, supported by Hautes-Alpes Développement, is labeled by the PEGASE innovation cluster and granted by the PACA Regional Council.

This collaborative project illustrates the innovation and industrial property policy set by BERINGER. Today, the company detains 10 International patents and was attributed the INPI innovation award in 2006. It also detains several aeronautics agreements. Similarly, ICARIUS AEROTECHNICS invests in innovation. In 2002, it was certified for re-motoring P6 Pilatus aircrafts with a PT6 A-34 turbine to improve the operational profitability of parachute dropping airplanes. This project illustrates the strong innovation capacity of the actors of the aeronautics industry in the Hautes-Alpes as well as their capacity for working together at joining their skills and expertise.