British Aerospace (BAe)

1983.

1990.

British Aerospace (BAe) is a UK aircraft and defence systems manufacturer.

1977 April 29th. The company was formed as a statutory corporation as a result of the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Act. This called for the nationalisation and merger of the British Aircraft Corporation, Hawker Siddeley Aviation, Hawker Siddeley Dynamics and Scottish Aviation. First chairman was Lord Beswick.

1978 BAe officially joined Airbus, the UK having previously withdrawn support for the consortium in April 1969.

1980 March 22nd. Sir Austin Pearce takes over as chairman

1981 January 1st. Floated on Stock Exchange.

1981 June: The company's Hawk ground attack trainer aircraft embarked on a month-long tour of the Middle East.

1982 January: Public debut for the Jetstream 31 mini-airliner.

1982 Gained a Queen's Award for Export Achivement for three years of overseas sales success.

1986 Purchased Royal Ordnance.

1988 The remaining parts of the Rover Group, namley Austin Rover and Land Rover, were sold by the British Government to British Aerospace (BAe)

1992 Company divided in to:

• British Aerospace (Military Aircraft)
• British Aerospace (Dynamics)
• Royal Ordnance

1994 BAe sold Rover Group to German vehicle manufacturer BMW who sold the Land Rover business to Ford, and split-off the MINI business as a new BMW subsidiary based in Cowley. The remainder of the former Rover Group volume car business, consolidated at the Longbridge plant, was named MG Rover Group.

1999 BAE Systems was formed on 30 November 1999 by the £7.7 billion merger of British Aerospace (BAe) and Marconi Electronic Systems.

2015 Employs 82,500 persons across 400 sites in over 40 countries of which 33,800 persons are in the UK (63 sites). Sales are £17.9bn of which 92% are defence related. Divisions are Air (53%), Marine (28%), Land (13%) and Cyber (6%).

See Also

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Sources of Information

• Wikipedia
• BAE Systems. A Proud Heritage in Aviation. Published 1995 / 2000