MANUFACTURE OF AIRCRAFT

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29101, 13 January 1960, Page 4

MANUFACTURE OF AIRCRAFT

Major Merger In Britain

(N.Z. Press Asoueiation— LONDON, January 11.

The British aviation industry tonight announced its second major merger in recent months. The giant firms of Vickers Armstrongs English Electric and Bristol are to amalgamate their aircraft and guided missile divisions. Last month two other leading aircraft firms, Hawker Siddeley and de Havilland, announced plans to merge. Tonight’s announcement joins together Britain's remaining giant aircraft firms.

Observers said it put into effect the declared policy of the Aviation Minister (Mr Duncan Sandys) for streamlining the industry into more economic units.

The new company will hold all the shares of the three groups’ subsidiaries, English Electric Aviation, Limited, Vickers Armstrongs (Aviation), Limited, and Bristol Aircraft, Limited. Shares will be held by the parent companies in the following proportions: English Electric, 40 per cent.; Vickers Armstrongs, 40 per cent.; Bristol Aeroplane Company, Limited, 20 per cent. Simultaneously, it was announced tonight that Westland Aircraft, Limited, the largest firm of helicopter manufacturers in Western Europe, is to buy the helicopter division of the Bristol Aeroplane Company. A joint statement by Westland and Bristol said they had reached agreement in principle for this sale.

Vickers Armstrongs built the Viscount, the world’s first turboprop airliner, of which 409 have so far been sold and more than 400 are in operation, A second general turbo-prop airliner, the Vickers Vanguard, goes into service later this year with British European Airways. The company’s last project is the V.C.10 jetliner ordered for British Overseas Airways Corporation. Vickers also built the Valiant, a Royal Air Force bomber, and the Spitfire hero of the Battle of Britain.

English Electric, responsible for the Canberra bomber, is now building the Pl supersonic fighter for the Royal Air Force. Its guided weapons division produce the Thunderbird surface-to-surface air missile with which the British Army is being reequipped. Bristols are makers of the Britannia turbo-prop airliner, which has been in service with British Overseas Airways Coropration for more than two years. Their latest project is a stainless steel research aircraft designed to test the heat barrier by flying at a speed of 2000 miles an hour or more.