Manufacturer

Aircraft Manufacturing Company Ltd / Airco

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In the summer of 1911 British businessman George Holt Thomas acqured the manufacturing rights from the Maurice and Henry Farman Aircraft Company to build their aircraft. At the same time he negotiated the rights to build the French Le Rhone and Gnome engines. Within nine months he had created the Aircraft Manufacturing Co Ltd, based at Hendon, London, and combined it with his two other companies, the Aeroplane Supply Company and Airships Ltd, with a capital of £14,700.

In the summer of 1912 a ‘Military Trials’ was held and the Aircraft Manufacturing Co submitted the Maurice Farman 70 hp biplane. The aircraft performed reasonably well but did not get a contract to build for the RFC. The company was awarded a £100 consolation prize.

For the next two years Holt Thomas acted just as an agent for the Farmans, and the company became “Airco”. Holt Thomas was approached by Geoffrey de Havilland with the suggestion that they build their own aircraft. Holt Thomas offered him a job as a designer and to establish the firm’s own design department at a salary of £600 plus commission on every aircraft sold.

Based at Hendon, London, the company made several types of military aircraft, generally known as D.H. rather than Airco. These were the D.H.1 and 1A two-seat pushers; D.H.3 and 3A twin-engined pushers; D.H.4 two-seat tractor (representing, as a fast day-bomber, one of the greatest aeronautical advances of the First World War); D.H.5 single-seat tractor with backward stagger; D.H.6 tractor trainer; D.H.9, an extensively developed D.H.4; D.H.9A, an even greater advance; D.H.10 and 10A, built in pusher and tractor forms (notably tractor); D.H.11 twin-engined bomber; and D.H.14 and 15 single-engined bombers.

Early civil transport types were the D.H.16 and D.H.18. Other companies controlled by Airco built flying-boats, air engines and airships. After the war Holt Thomas founded Air Transport and Travel Ltd.

The Aircraft Manufacturing Co. was sold in 1919 to the B.S.A.-Daimler group who, disappointed at the failure of air transport in 1919-20, shut the firm down. Almost immediately de Havilland and C.C.Walker, financed largely by Holt Thomas, out of money which he got by selling B.S.A. shares which he received in payment for the A.M.C. Ltd, started de Havilland Aircraft Co. Ltd. Airco name was temporarily revived January 1958 for production of D.H.121 jet transport.

On 1 January 1929 George Holt Thomas, founder of Aircraft Manufacturing Company Ltd, died.

Airbus Industries

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Airbus Industries was first established on 29 May 1969, after the signing of a Franco-German agreement to go ahead with the Airbus 300. In December 1970, Airbus Industries was registered under French law as a GIE ( Groupement d’Intérêt Economique ) under the leadership of the ‘Airbus Founding Fathers’ – Franz-Josef Strauss, Henri Ziegler, Robert Bateille and Felix Kracht.

The first delivery of a production A300 was made in My 1974 to Air France.

The A300 programme, launched in May 1969, was initially a Franco-German venture, with the British aircraft industry participating on a private basis. Airbus Industrie, the organisation which was responsible for the management, marketing, sales and product support of the programme, was created in December 1970 as an equal partnership between Aerospatiale of France and Deutsche Airbus GmbH of Germany. The organisation was based at Toulouse, in the South of France, where it remains. Casa of Spain joined in 1971and in 1979 British Aerospace joined as a full partner. The consortium was owned by Aerospatiale of France (37.9 percent), DaimlerChrysler of Germany (37.9 percent), British Aerospace (20 percent) and CASA of Spain (4.2 percent), which are also the main industrial participants in design, development, and manufacture. Associate members of the consortium are Belairbus of Belgium and Fokker Aviation of the Netherlands.
Airbus Industrie was restructured into a limited-liability company in 1999, divisions included Airbus Industrie Asia, formed with Alenia of Italy to develop a new airliner in partnership with AVIC of China and ST Aero of Singapore; Airbus Military Company to develop the FLA military freighter (taking over from former Euroflag; and Large Aircraft, founded in 1996 to progress work on the ultra-large A3XX airliner.
On 11 July 2001, EADS and BAE Systems completed the final procedures to make the new integrated Airbus company a formal legal entity.