How many people helped open the skies to electric aviation in Canada? One project says “Thank You” to over 150 helpers.

Electric aircraft, or e-planes, were approved for pilot training at flight schools in Canada on 11 July 2025. How many people helped to make it happen?

The simple answer is that many people and organizations were involved.

It was not one Ottawa official in Transport Canada waking up one morning and deciding to revise the rules governing flight training in Canada.

Evidence needed to be collected. Electric flights needed to happen. Data needed to be analysed. Firsthand electric aviation experience was required.

This is where the Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Aeronautics(WISA) joined the picture. Three WISA researchers,Dr. Paul Parker, Dr. Suzanne Kearns and Dr. Mehrdad Pirnia, applied for funding to purchase and evaluate Canada’s first internationally type certified electric plane.

They partnered with Waterloo Wellington Flight Centre, WWFC, to build on the existing relationship as the flight training partner for Waterloo Aviation students since 2007.

Thank you to the many people and partners who helped move our electric aviation project forward over the last five years. The following list illustrates the diverse range of people involved. We also thank the people who are not named but contributed in their own ways.

The initiators:

• 3 Faculty of Environment graduate students who helped initiate proposals: Daniel Byskal, Chelsea-Anne Edwards, and Anna Scribner
• 4 Senior WWFC staff: Bob Connors - General Manager, Matt Scheben - Chief Flight Instructor, and Steve Prang / Greg Side - Director of Maintenance
• 6 Region of Waterloo and YKF staff: Matthew Chandy, Ivy Cui, Rod Regier, Chris Wood, Jeremy Gardner, Jeff Caswell, Oliver Potter
• 4 Pipistrel Alpha Electro pilots: James Douma, Joseph Oldham, Barrie Rogers, Catherine Conway
• 17 Transport Canada officials: James, Ryan, John, Wendy, Jim, Felix, David, Tracey, Hani, Gary, Blake, Brian, Jamie, Kimberly, Sean, Henri, Joseph

Additional UW personnel:

• 18 UW Aviation students: Gabriel Song, Kyra Jarvis, Tyler Jing, Zachary Taylor, Caitlin Ho, Andrew Aquino, David Pham, Selina Yong, Belinda Lu, Elitza Nikolova, Izhaan Rauf, Timothy Doak, Alex Li, Emily Smith, William Halley, Candice Yeung, Arnav Malhotra
• 16 UW Engineering students: Pablo Rivadeneira, Carlos Espinosa, Nassim Najafi, Dahui Kang, Nathan Lu, Kevin Lau, David Lu, Roshan Karthik, Aniket Biswal, Hongyi Xu, Kirti Bansal, Vikram Bhatt, Nayeema Nonta, Joanna Yang, Meenakshi Andoorveedu, Peter Twarecki
• 3 Senior UW approvers: Jean Andrey - Dean of Environment, Mary Wells - Dean of Engineering, Chris Houser - Dean of Science
• 3 UW faculty: Peter Deadman, Claudio Canizares, Mehrdad Kazerani
• 12 WISA Staff: Patty Mah, Valerie Cheng, Claire Mastrangelo, Chris Shum, Christine Wagner, Rafael Repato, Larissa Ho, Lisa Maenpaa, Theodora Uwaifo, Sherry Elliot, Kashvi Bhatia, Charu Sachdeva, Hyun Su Seong
• 14 Office of Research: Andrew Barker, Stephanie Filsinger, Steven Holland, Jamie Mahony, Thiam Phouthonephackdy, Darla Steinmann, Cliff Lam, Steven Holland, Gwen Bender, Sabine Stemmler, William Bankiner, Theshani Vijayaratnam, Karen Pieters, Victoria Tough
• 3 Office of Procurement: Christine Henderson, Terry Taylor, Stephen Cook
• 2 Legal Services: Evan Taylor, Sheila Constant
• 9 Environment/Engineering: Jennifer Nicholson, Neil Craik, Jeff Wilson, Tara Thompson, Richard Kelly, Chris Fletcher, Simon Glauser, Gwen Golden, Rosalind Klein

Additional partner/private personnel:

• 7 WWFC instructors: Elaine Gabber, Ben Pesowsky, Alysha Bryant, Craig Veenstra, Daniel Link, Graham Mantha, Akbar Bashiri
• 3 WWFC staff: Ravi Seecharron, Brian Finnerty, Julie Mudry
• 5 Sealand Flight: Nancy Marshall, General Manager, Ian Lamont, Chief Flight Instructor, Mike Andrews, Jolene, Greg Koopman
• 6 Pipistrel: Ivo Boscarol, Gabriel Massey, Jernej Tominc, Irena Podgornik, Tadej Hozic, Janko Bogataj
• 2 Apex Aircraft: Anna Pangrazzi, Madison Furgala
• 3 Brantford Flight Centre: Shawn Broughton - General Manager, Katherine Summers - Chief Flight Instructor, Chris Leonard - Production Manager
• 1 Canadian Advanced Air Mobility, CAAM: JR Hammond
• 1 International Pipistrel Velis Electro Trainer: Harrison Freer
• 2 Hendrie Machinery Movers: Lance, Mike
• 3 Electricians: Ted Spieker, Scott Little, Tom Spence
• 2 elibird Aero: Teara Fraser, Trevin Muscat
• NavCanada staff
• Emergency response personnel (new training for battery fires)

Of course, other electric plane projects (Habour Air, CAE, Air Canada / Heart Aerospace, Helijet / Beta, etc.) are also underway to advance electric aviation in Canada. They also have extensive networks. The result is hundreds of people engaged to create a new era in sustainable aviation in Canada.