Europe's escalating wildfire crisis is driving a renewed push for advanced aerial firefighting technology, with a French startup aiming to revolutionise the sector.

Inside the shell of a disused turboprop aircraft, engineer Jonathan Beck demonstrates how his company, Positive Aviation, plans to challenge ageing Canadair water-bombers in combatting wildfires across the continent. Designs for new or converted water-bombers have gained momentum after nearly 500,000 hectares burned across Europe this year.

Last year, a French parliamentary panel warned the nation’s existing aerial firefighting fleet faced a "major crisis" and called for European alternatives to the rugged water-scooping Canadairs, which have dominated the market for decades.

At first glance, the task looks daunting. A water-scooper is partly a seaplane, the art of which has eroded over the years.

Beck, a former Airbus engineer and head of design at Positive Aviation, said: "We will have eight tons of water inside this aircraft,” pointing to Y-shaped pipes that would draw water from new floats designed to skim over lakes or sea.

The Toulouse-based startup is using the dismembered ATR-72 fuselage as an early demonstrator or testbed, breathing new life into the historic Hangar 16 that spawned Concorde.

A few miles away, Kepplair is receiving an ATR-72 to test its vision of a ground-loaded tanker to replace Canada's veteran Dash-8 on pre-emptive patrols to tackle initial outbreaks.

"It's the difference between an uncontrollable fire and one that is halted quickly," said Kepplair founder David Joubert.

Europe's last serious effort to match Canadair by Germany's Dornier and Italy's Aeritalia in the 1980s, Advanced Amphibious Aircraft (AAA), never left the drawing board due to cost.

"Western nations... have lost their skills in professional seaplane design since the 1950s or even World War Two," said former AAA project chief Elmar Welczek, a German professor widely seen as a leading expert in the mainly forgotten field of water flying.

Before they can quench a single flame, would-be water-bombers must scoop up significant amounts of capital to fund the R&D, certification tests and factories needed.

"What I think people under-estimate is the time to go from design to delivery," said John Boag, CEO of top private Canadair operator Avincis.

Estimates of development costs by entrepreneurs run from tens of millions for a simple conversion to $1 billion for a new plane and analysts warn that could go far higher.

Converted or new planes

Positive Aviation hopes to tap a market for converting second-hand planes and be ready for 2028, company president Laurent Schmitt said. It has a provisional order for 10 planes from U.S.-based Bridger Aerospace.

Kepplair is raising a new round of funding and aims to start deliveries next year, Joubert said.

At least three other firms are touting even bolder plans to design and build planes from scratch, while so far giving few details in public about their backers.

The most prominent so far is French startup HYNAERO, which announced Latecoere - a pioneer of early boat planes and now an aerostructures supplier - as a provisional partner last week.

It says its Fregate-F100 scooper plane would hold 10 tons of water and cost the same as a Canadair - roughly $80 million with support - but be twice as efficient in fighting fires.

In Italy, 19-01 Holding has been promoting since 2011 what it calls an integrated firefighting and emergency-response system centred on a new amphibious plane, WF-X.

CEO Renato Sacchetti said assembly would start in Italy from 2031. He added it would have entirely private funding worth €1.2 billion but declined to give details.

In Belgium, the amphibious Seagle is the brainchild of Gaetan du Four, an architect who aims to partner with industrial groups. He is candid about financial and industrial challenges.

"We are looking at the middle of next decade because we have to get funding. But I don't think any other (new) plane will fly before then," he told Reuters.

Startups must also compete with a new version of the Canadair, which resumed production this year subject to safety approval, after an 11-year gap.

Deliveries of the DHC-515 have been delayed three years to 2028, but owner De Havilland Canada argues alternatives carry more risk. "It's a lot of years and a lot of engineering," said Neil Sweeney, its corporate affairs vice-president.

Even so, Europe's aspiring water-bombers see a window of support as politicians debate firefighting capacity.

"What worries me is that in four weeks' time, nobody will talk about it, either media or politicians," Schmitt said.