Top Aces, a company that specializes in aerial combat training and is established on the ground at Saguenay Airport, is on the rise thanks to a four-year contract won in Germany.

Top Aces actually won a ten-year contract in 2017 to serve as a training partner for the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), valued at nearly $ 500 million.

We just got the same type of contract, on a smaller scale, in Germany. Saguenay base director, Francois Laroche, explained that we are targeting other partnerships in Europe with the British.

“We also have projects with the United States,” added James Manning, Vice President of the Top Aces team. This will allow us to take advantage of technology that will make the threats more realistic during our exercises. “

The company has bases in Cold Lake, Halifax, and Victoria, but the center in Saguenay is the largest maintenance center in the country, employing about sixty employees.

“We’re playing a little bad guy in training,” said Mr. LaRouche. “Our pilots go to the training sites and participate in combat and interception exercises.”

Top Aces is installed in a Saguenay hangar at the site of Bagotville Airport. As the building soon became very small, the company installed a temporary dome for $ 500,000, to which promotional company Saguenay contributed $ 75,000.

“This allowed us to add 8 to 12 jobs that we were subcontracting with Montreal,” the vice president said.

The Mayor of Saguenay and President of Saguenay Promotion, Josée Néron, visited the branch on Monday afternoon, where commercial successes such as Top Aces for the economic development of the region were welcomed.