In 2011, SONACA, which was formed out of the company Avions Fairey in 1978, will celebrate its 80 years in existence.
 
In 1931, thanks to its Fox and Firefly biplanes, Fairey won a contract to supply light fighter airplanes and bombers to the “Aéronautique Militaire”, E.O. TIPS founded the Belgian subsidiary in Gosselies, which had been the centre of various aeronautical activities since the 1920s, such as the flying school of the famous 1914-18 war hero, Captain Jacquet.
 
 
On the first day of the Second World War, 6th May 1940, Fairey’s facilities were bombed and the staff were forced to evacuate the equipment and half-finished HURRICANE airplanes as best they could. Some staff members actively participated in the war effort for five years, from Fairey’s headquarters in Hayes (London).
 
When the war ended, the Gosselies plant was rapidly rebuilt and used for the maintenance of the first Spitfire, Dakota and other Harvard aircraft belonging to the Belgian Air Force, as it was known as from 1948. This was followed by the jet engine era: as from 1952 and until the end of the 1950s, Fairey assembled under licence several hundreds of different types of Gloster Meteor (IV, VIII and XI), followed by Hawker Hunter aircraft.
 
 At the same time, an interesting range of Tipsy light aircraft prospered until the arrival of the Nipper, which many people considered as the plane for “the man in the street”. However, it became incompatible with the rest of the company’s activities.   
 
The years from 1960 to 1965 were marked by the multinational production of the famous Mach 2 fighter plane, the Lockheed F-104G Starfighter, which was a real technological revolution. Fairey took an active part in the production and assembly of the Belgian Air Force’s airplanes but also produced front fuselage sections for Italy. It then won various contracts initiating the diversification of its activities, such as the Epervier UAV, whose delta wing and composite airframe were developed in-house, and participated in developing the first ever “Regional Jet”, the VFW614, which unfortunately entered the market during the first oil crisis (1973). The 1970s were also marked by the complete single-source production of the twin-engine Britten-Norman Islander, which was highly successful worldwide owing to its robustness and versatility.
 
In 1975, the Contract of the Century was signed, which established the F-16 as the new fighter airplane to equip the Belgian, Danish, Norwegian and Dutch air forces.
This deal, which involved SONACA’s participation, had an amazing industrial impact with the production of 1,379 fully-equipped rear fuselage sections, and the assembly of 222 complete airframes, including the fitting out of the cockpit, the landing gear and the canopy.
 
In May 1978, Fairey closed down and SONACA was created. Its first objective was to continue with the F-16 contract, but the company rapidly became an associate partner of the Airbus consortium for the launch of the A310. This was a major turning point for the company, which prompted the beginning of changes to its business portfolio: it went from a 90:10 share in the Defence and Civilian markets to the exact opposite as of 2000.
 
In order to fulfil the contract for the A310 and those that followed, in which SONACA was associated as a risk partner for the development of components, the company set up engineering services. This capability is now one of its major assets to capture new markets: in addition to the following airplanes in the Airbus range, such as the globally successful A320 (3,500 planes delivered, 1,500 in the order book), the A330/340 and the A380 super jumbo, Sonaca won the 145 and 170/190 Embraer aircraft, and several business jets such as the prestigious DASSAULT 7X.
 
At the same time, SONACA has gradually become a valued player in the space sector in the field of flight structures: satellite platforms such as SPOT5, PLEIADES and COROT, the anti-meteorite protection structures for COLUMBUS, the European module, the shield for the BEAGLE 2 Martian probe, to name but a few.
 
Since 2000, SONACA has also developed the internationalisation of its activities by setting up subsidiaries in Brazil (Sobraer, Sopecaero, Pesola), the USA (SONACA-NMF Wichita) and Canada (SONACA-NMF Montreal). These companies complete its business and customer portfolio, while improving communication on a local level with its major principals.
 
 The 2009-2010 period has been marked by several major contracts such as the C-Series, the Learjet 85 and the A350, whose development should lead to its first flights in 2013. With production beginning on the A400M and A380, and the continued success of the Airbus A320 and Embraer 170/190 ranges, the company’s future seems secure.