By ZOE MASON on July 29, 2026.
Landing Zones CEO Spencer Fraser poses with head of air power at Airbus Defence and Space Jean-Brice Dumont after signing the new agreement in the U.K. last week.–PHOTO COURTESY LANDING ZONESzmason@medicinehatnews.com
A major Medicine Hat aerospace company inked a significant deal with Europe’s largest aeronautics and space corporation last week.
The Medicine Hat-based company Landing Zones signed a strategic partnership agreement with Airbus Defence and Space for advanced uncrewed aerial systems at the Farnborough International Airshow in the United Kingdom last Wednesday.
“This strategic investment accelerates our world-leading threat emulation technologies focused on modern drone threats proliferating on today’s battlefields,” said Landing Zones founder and CEO Spencer Fraser.
“By combining Airbus’s global expertise with our agile Canadian capabilities, we will provide highly realistic and relevant, large-scale simulation solutions for Canada and its allies – enabling rapid development of complex and representative battlefield scenarios while strengthening sovereign Canadian capabilities.”
The partnership will expand the Canadian presence of Airbus, which currently employs more than 5,300 people in the country. It will also see the Medicine Hat-based facility serve as a dedicated representative for Airbus in Canada.
It’s the latest in a string of successes for Landing Zones, which also received the first investment from the Business Development Bank of Canada’s new StrongNorth Fund, a $300-million venture capital vehicle for early-stage Canadian defence startups, earlier this year.
Landing Zones was also granted a repayable $1.1-million investment from the federal government under the Regional Artificial Intelligence Initiative in March.
The City of Medicine Hat embraces the announcement as a major success as the city continues to highlight aerospace and defence as a key growth sector for the region.
“It’s good news on all fronts,” said manager of investment attraction with Medicine Hat Economic Development.
“Airbus is a major player. So their investment means Landing Zones has a bright future, in terms of their growth, in terms of job creation.”
Sharma says the success of Landing Zones and its new position as a Canadian partner of Airbus could help attract other aerospace companies to the area. Attracting major investments like this one adds personnel and potential for partnerships to the area that draw new business in.
“They’re investing in the technology. But the drone industry is about the people. When a technology comes, there’s engineers that are hired, technologists, support staff. That will create that technological cluster where we can attract more companies that would collaborate and support their initiatives around the target system technology.”
Other companies in Medicine Hat contribute to that cluster, Sharma says, including UVAD and Qinetic, another local drone producer, which just celebrated the milestone of manufacturing its 750th uncrewed surface vessel, a seaborn target drone.
Sharma says he sees the recent success of the sector as a consequence of a concerted effort by the city to raise the profile of the region. He says the pitch for Medicine Hat emphasizes work-life balance.
“We have the infrastructure here. We have CFB Suffield. We have the testing environment at Foremost. We’ve got the drone companies. We also promote our lifestyle and our low tax base,” he said.
While in Medicine Hat last week, Cypress-Medicine Hat MLA Justin Wright highlighted the Airbus partnership as an example of opportunity that was produced by diversifying trade partners beyond the U.S.
“These are the big wins. This is how we can help out with NATO, with [NATO’s defence innovation accelerator] Operation Diana, or we can even support our American friends to the south, and really make sure that Medicine Hat is front and centre.”
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