Aérospatiale

Industry Aerospace and Defense

Predecessor Sud Aviation

Nord Aviation

SEREB

Founded 1970

Defunct 10 July 2000

Fate Merged into EADS

Successor EADS

AEROSPATIALE a French state-owned company, is one of the world’s leaders in the development and manufacturing of aerospace equipment. Aerospatiale’s many products and research projects can be divided into four basic categories: Aircraft, Helicopters, Missile Systems, and Space Equipment. Its development of the Concorde in partnership with Great Britain is one of the best known example of Aerospatiale’s commitment to cooperation with other countries. A significant portion of the company’s business is done in such international consortiums as Airbus Industrie, ATR, Euromissile and Eurocopter SA.

The company’s aircraft division, with approximately 14,000 employees, has sales of about FFr 21 billion. As part of Airbus Industrie, a consortium that also includes Deutsche Aerospace Airbus, British Aerospace plc, and CASA, Aerospatiale produces a successful line of commercial jets, the Airbus A300-600, the Airbus A310, A320, A330, and A340. ATR, the company’s cooperative venture with Alenia, supplies such regional transport aircraft as the ATR 42, a 50-seater, and ATR 72, with 70 seats, used by feeder airlines. The aircraft division is also working with companies in Europe and the United States on a successor to the Concorde.

Aerospatiale can actually trace its history back to the early days of aviation. Aerospatiale is the product of a long series of mergers in the French aerospace industry that began when eight major companies were nationalised in 1936 and 1937. Competition in the limited market for aircraft was fierce.

Aerospatiale’s founding companies benefited in the succeeding years from the Army’s interest in airplanes. The military observed planes in such large-scale manoeuvres as the Reims Competition in 1911, in which manufacturers competed to make the aircraft best suited to the military’s operational requirements. Aircraft orders boomed in World War I. For instance, 13 Bleriot SPAD VII and SPAD XIII were made a day, for a total of 13,000 by the end of the war—Bleriot representing just one manufacturer.

After the war, companies began concentrating on the development of commercial air transportation, and the French manufacturers were at the forefront of the industry. In 1918 Farman designed the Goliath, which in the next six years set several world records, including its 1919 two-stage flight from Paris to Casablanca to Dakar, totalling 2200 kilo meters. Bleriot supplied Europe’s first airlines with “Berlinés,” and in the 1920s and early 1930s, Potez’s plant was reputed to be the world’s most modern aeronautical facility. Manufacturing flourished in this period, with French aircraft setting records and fulfilling much of Europe’s need for air transportation.

When France was liberated in 1945, the aeronautical industry struggled to catch up. Many studies that had been secretly pursued during the Occupation bore fruit and sped France’s return to the level of the U.S. and British industries. For example, the country’s first jet, the Triton, had been secretly developed during the war and was tested only one year after France was liberated. However, their attempts to develop a helicopter were frustrated by mechanical problems and the closing of SNCAC in 1949. With the development of the Djinn by SNCASO in the mid-1950s, the French helicopter industry got its real start, producing 150 units between 1956 and 1960.

The mid-1950s began a critical period for the companies that were to become Aerospatiale. Their helicopter designs moved to the forefront of the industry when they replaced piston-driven engines with high-capacity turbo engines. The helicopter utilising these engines, the Alouette I introduced in 1955, and the subsequent Alouette II, sold well both nationally and as an export. The companies also gained ground with their studies in supersonic aircraft, developing the Durandal in 1956.

This period also saw the beginning of Aerospatiale’s subsequent dedication to cooperative agreements with other countries. After the reconciliation between France and West Germany. They extended their cooperative endeavours to include the development of the Airbus program. France and Great Britain together pursued the creation of a supersonic transport plane, resulting in the 1969 maiden flight of the Concorde.

In 1990 France and Britain began a three-year study into the commercial and technical feasibility of a second generation supersonic transport. The study was to examine the ATSF (Future Supersonic Transport Aircraft), and a HYPERSONIC aircraft, the AGV (High-Speed Aircraft), which would fly 12,000 to 15,000 km at Mach 5, but would not require passengers to have astronaut training. In theory, the ATSF could be in service by 2005, and the AGV by 2030 to 2040, but both would need broad-based international cooperation to make development feasible. There were many problems to overcome, including the assurance of a market for 400-500 aircraft.

In 1991 Aerospatiale and Italy’s state-owned Alenia made a bid for De Havilland, an ailing Canadian subsidiary of Boeing Co. The European Commission, a decision-making body of the European Community (EC), did not allow the deal to go through, however, arguing the venture would have a “dominant position,” giving the two companies together a 50 percent share of the world market and 65 percent of the EC market for commuter planes with 20 to 70 seats.

Aerospatiale’s performance in the 1970s was held back by a continuing lack of orders for the aircraft division. The Concorde, scheduled to begin service in 1975, had only nine orders in 1973, and those were from the countries sponsoring the aircraft’s development, France and England. Aerospatiale was finding it difficult to market to other countries because cost overruns and environmental problems had raised the price of a Concorde from $15 million to $65 million. In addition, operating costs for the Concorde, already quite high, rose dramatically with skyrocketing oil prices. Interest in the United States was particularly low because the aircraft would not be allowed to fly supersonically over land. Airbus Industrie’s Airbus A 300 B, a twin-engine wide body aircraft, was also in financial trouble because of a low number of orders.

The company also continued to work with British Aerospace, forming plans in the mid-1980s for a second generation Concorde, although evaluating its feasibility was expected to take years. Airbus Industrie expanded its line and soon offered a large series of commercial aircraft. Orders gradually improved during the 1980s; in 1989 aircraft orders totalled over 39 million francs, and in 1990 Airbus Industrie had 1250 firm orders for A300s, A310s, and A320s.

The next year Aerospatiale, DASA, and Alenia were planning a new consortium called Regioliner, which would produce a 120-seat jet by 1996. Many companies saw the market for a new generation of small jet aircraft that could be used for short routes, but lacked the money to develop them. The companies were hoping for government funds to help start them on this proposed $2.5 billion project.

Here are Aircraft List of Aérospatiale:

Principal Subsidiaries

Seca

Socata

Sogerma - Socea

Euro-copter Holding (60%)

Eurocopter SA (25% held directly, Euro-copter Holding holds an additional 75%)

Euromissile (50%)

ATR (50%)

Airbus Industrie Group (37.9%)

Sextant Avionique (50%)

Unilaser; Aerospatiale, Inc. (U.S.A.)

Aerospatiale Canada Inc.

Aerospatiale UK Ltd.

Concorde Supersonic Aircraft

Concorde is a British–French turbojet-powered supersonic passenger airliner that was operated from 1976 until 2003. It had a maximum speed over twice the speed of sound, at Mach 2.04 (1,354 mph or 2,180 km/h at cruise altitude), with seating for 92 to 128 passengers. First flown in 1969, Concorde entered service in 1976 and operated for 27 years. It is one of only two supersonic transports to have been operated commercially; the other is the Soviet-built Tupolev Tu-144, which operated in the late 1970s.

Concorde was jointly developed and manufactured by Sud Aviation (later Aérospatiale) and the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC) under an Anglo-French treaty. Twenty aircraft were built, including six prototypes and development aircraft. Air France and British Airways were the only airlines to purchase and fly Concorde. The aircraft was used mainly by wealthy passengers who could afford to pay a high price in exchange for the aircraft's speed and luxury service. For example, in 1997, the round-trip ticket price from New York to London was $7,995 (equivalent to $12,900 in 2020),more than 30 times the cost of the cheapest option to fly this route.

Among other destinations, Concorde flew regular transatlantic flights from London's Heathrow Airport and Paris's Charles de Gaulle Airport to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia, and Grantley Adams International Airport in Barbados; it flew these routes in less than half the time of other airliners.

Concorde aircraft were retired in 2003, three years after the crash of Air France Flight 4590, in which all passengers and crew were killed. The general downturn in the commercial aviation industry after the September 11 attacks in 2001 and the end of maintenance support for Concorde by Airbus contributed to the retirement.