BAe Systems

Manufacturer of military based air, sea, land and space systems.

Originally known as British Aerospace (BAe) with various minor changes over the years.

Formed in April 1977 from the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC), Hawker Siddeley Aviation, Hawker Siddeley Dynamics and Scottish Aviation as a nationalized corporation. It was privatized in 1981.

Throughout the 80’s and the 90’s went through numerous conglomerate style acquisitions and sales. The most notable of these was the acquisition of Rover Group in 1988. In 1990 a reciprocal agreement was formed with Honda with great success. The group was finally sold on to BMW in 1994 amid a huge media flurry (The last British car manufacturer is sold to Germany!).

Other interesting acquisitions include that BAe once owned 21% of Orange (the mobile phone network) and currently holds 76% stake in Liverpool Airport.

In 1999 it was renamed to BAe Systems.

Previous air programmes.

• Jaguar – a fighter/trainer (produced in cooperation with France).
• Tornado – two-seater supersonic strike/air defense plane.
• Harrier – a VTOL fighter jet.

Current Production

• Hawk – a two-seater trainer/fighter and single-seater fighter. Subsonic only.
• Eurofighter – new generation multirole single-seater supersonic aircraft.
• Nimrod – maritime reconnaissance aircraft.

Future Production

• JSF – (Not in production yet). In partnership with Lockheed Martin.

Previous Civil projects

• Jetstream – small turbo-prop passenger plane.
• BAe 146 – mid-sized passenger jet.

Current Civil Projects.

• Airbus – manufactures the wings for the airbus family of passenger jets.
• Avro regional jets - the current range of passenger aircraft.

Notable Maritime Projects.

• Type 45 destroyer.
• Astute class submarine.