Downsview Airport or Toronto/Downsview Airport is located in the North York district of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. An air field, then air force base, it has been a testing facility for Bombardier Aerospace since 1994. Bombardier has sold the facility and manufacturing plant and its future is uncertain. Downsview Airport has its own fire service which covers airport operations and plant operations. Bombardier Emergency Services employees are cross-trained as firefighters, first responders and airport security.
The Downsview Airport was developed in 1939 as an airfield next to an aircraft manufacturing plant operated by de Havilland Canada. In 1947, the Department of National Defence purchased property surrounding the airfield and expanded it, creating RCAF Station Downsview to provide an air base for Royal Canadian Air Force units. The base was renamed Canadian Forces Base Toronto in 1968 and retained this name until its closure in 1996. Since 1998, the property has been administered by a civilian Crown corporation, Parc Downsview Park, which co-manages the airfield with Bombardier Aerospace. In recent years the property has been undergoing various landscape usage plans and some redevelopment has taken place. The airfield was used in recent years to host the 1984 and 2002 papal visits by Pope John Paul II, as well as to host the Molson Canadian Rocks for Toronto concert headlined by The Rolling Stones to revive the local economy after the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak in 2003. The airfield has also served as a test site for several famous aircraft produced by de Havilland and Avro Canada, including the Beaver, the Twin Otter, and the Dash 8. The airport is available to pilots only with prior permission. Bombardier Aerospace currently owns 12 hangars in the southwest corner of the airport, where the Dash 8 is built and assembled. The Bombardier Global Express and the Bombardier Global 5000 are also assembled here at the Downsview plant, as are the wings and wingboxes of the Learjet 45. The Bombardier CSeries jet had landed at the airfield in 2015, but is assembled in Montreal. The airport has one operational runway, 15/33 at with a parallel taxiway. Runway 09/27 at is closed, as is runway 04/22 at . Bombardier has an agreement to sell the Downsview Airport and its manufacturing plant to PSP Investments. Under the agreement, Bombardier can use Downsview for up to five years. Bombardier signed a lease agreement with the Greater Toronto Airports Authority to build a new facility at Pearson Airport on where it would move the production of its Global series planes. Plans for Dash 8 production were not announced at that time. In November 2018, Bombardier sold the Dash 8 business and the DeHavilland name to Viking Air, which has not disclosed its long-term plans for Dash 8 production beyond the existing already agreed-upon timeframe for Downsview.
Military housing
A series of homes were built for Canadian Forces personnel at the corner of Keele Street and Sheppard Avenue West and at the south end of the base property. Access to the north end housing on Robert Woodhead Crescent and John Drury Drive was restricted to base personnel and fenced off from the neighbouring properties. With most of the military base being closed down, the housing has been abandoned and torn down.
