BAe Dynamics

British Aerospace Dynamics Limited (BADL or BAe Dynamics) was a division of British Aerospace.

History

British Aerospace was created in April 1977 by the merger of the British Aircraft Corporation, Hawker Siddeley Aviation, Hawker Siddeley Dynamics and Scottish Aviation.

Formation

There were two companies in the formation:

• BAC (Guided Weapons)
• Hawker Siddeley Dynamics

The missile, weapon systems and space businesses of these companies were merged into British Aerospace Dynamics Limited (BADL), a wholly owned subsidiary of BAe.

In December 1979, Euromissile Dynamics Group was formed with Aérospatiale of Toulouse, France and MBB of Ottobrunn.

Rationalisation

British Aerospace was partially privatised on 4 February 1981. In 1989 the then fully privatised BAe instituted a company wide restructuring. BAe Dynamics was rationalised with the particular aim of reducing costs. Along with redundancies the main part of this was the closing of four of the company's facilities; Bracknell, Hatfield, Bolton and Weymouth.

In 1981 it was conducting important research into passive infra-red surveillance.

Subsidiary company

On 1 January 1992 British Aerospace Defence Ltd began trading as a wholly owned subsidiary of BAe. Previously separate defence companies now operated as divisions of that subsidiary;

• British Aerospace (Dynamics) Ltd
• British Aerospace (Military Aircraft) Ltd,
• Royal Ordnance plc
• British Aerospace Systems and Services Division (BAe SSD)

In 1994 the BAe Dynamics subsidiary British Aerospace Space Systems was sold to Matra Marconi Space.

In the mid-1990s, development work for the Meteor missile took place.

Merger with Matra

In 1996 BAe Dynamics' guided weapons division was merged with a division of Matra Defense to form the (then) largest European missile manufacturer, Matra BAe Dynamics. This group now forms part of MBDA.

Structure

Space

In 1980 it built a space camera at its Filton site. It built a 107,000 sq ft (9,900 m²) factory in the mid-1980s at Filton for design, production and testing of satellites.

Products

Missiles

• ALARM (missile), built with Marconi Space and Defence Systems
• Rapier (missile) SAM, designed earlier by BAC (Guided Weapons), and developed with Marconi Space and Defence Systems (the Blindfire radar), and was superior to the comparative Roland
• Sea Dart (missile), designed earlier by Hawker Siddeley Dynamics
• Sea Eagle (missile) ASM
• Sea Skua ASM
• Sea Wolf (missile) SAM
• Skyflash AAM
• Trigat

Satellites

• Giotto (spacecraft), approached Halley's Comet in March 1986 (made at Filton)
• Orbital Test Satellite
• Skynet (satellite), built with MSDS

Chief Executives

• George Jefferson (1977–80), also Chairman, and former Managing Director of Managing Director of English Electric Guided Weapons Division, and BAC (Guided Weapons), and later the first Chairman of British Telecom from 1980
• Admiral Sir Raymond Lygo (1980-)

References