British Aircraft Corporation
British Aircraft Corporation Ltd. ( BAC ) was an aircraft company that was created in 1959/60 through the merger of various traditional British aircraft manufacturers. The concentration of the companies in the BAC was the result of pressure from the British government in order to be able to survive as a British company in the face of US competition. Sir George Edwards , previously chief designer of Vickers-Armstrong , became the first director .
The BAC included the aircraft factories of Vickers Armstrong , English Electric , Bristol Aircraft Company and Hunting Aircraft . The company became known through the construction of the British-French joint project Concorde ( airframe in connection with Sud Aviation , later Aérospatiale , engines by Bristol Siddeley and SNECMA ).
Other types of aircraft from BAC production were:
- Commercial aircraft Vickers VC10 , BAC 1-11 (better known as One-Eleven ) and Concorde
- Military aircraft Lightning , BAC-167 , Panavia Tornado (together with MBB and Fiat ) and SEPECAT Jaguar (together with Breguet )
The group also produced various armaments such as the Bloodhound , Thunderbird and Rapier surface -to-air guided missiles and the Vigilant and Swingfire anti-tank guided weapons . The group also took part in various space projects ( UK-3 satellite ) and built sounding rockets , gyroscopes, antennas and supersonic wind tunnels, among other things .
In 1973 the BAC group had 34,000 employees, most of the capital was owned by Vickers-Armstrong.
The final act of concentration came in 1977 when the state merged the British Aircraft Corporation with Hawker Siddeley and Scottish Aviation to form the British Aerospace Corporation (BAe) (now BAE Systems).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Sir George Edwards , The Independent, March 7, 2003