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A company looking to rebuild a venerable water bomber aircraft in Calgary is about to hire 150 new workers.

Viking Air Ltd. of Victoria and sister company Longview Aviation Asset Management announced Monday they will hire technical and support staff at its Calgary facilities in the coming weeks.

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The group recently acquired 11 of the aging CL-215 aerial firefighting aircraft and is moving ahead with a plan to modernize the $30-million planes at its Calgary facilities, installing new engines and avionics.

The companies are looking for 150 new people in Calgary and recently created a recruitment website, said Viking CEO David Curtis.

“We need office folks and HR people and accounting and then we need production, skilled trades. So we’ve launched that and it’s going,” he said in an interview.

“It essentially more than doubles our employees’ footprint in Calgary.”

Viking and Longview are working with the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) to train personnel locally as it expands its existing operations in Calgary and Victoria, where it manufactures the Series 400 Twin Otter plane.