Belgium builds its own

SABCA was founded in 1920 to design and build aircraft for Belgium’s young aviation needs, with its first factory beside Haren airfield on the edge of Brussels. Between the wars it produced its own designs, such as the S.2 airliner of 1926 and the S.XII trimotor of 1931, alongside licence-built types including 15 Airco DH.4 bombers and Fokker and Savoia-Marchetti airliners. Licence production has been part of the business throughout its existence.

A licence for every era

After the German occupation SABCA resumed work and opened a plant at Charleroi in 1955. It became a prolific licence builder: Hawker Hunters, Republic F-84s, Lockheed F-104G Starfighters, Dassault Mirage 5s and AgustaWestland A109s. From 1977 it ran one of two European F-16 lines, assembling 164 at Gosselies, with deliveries to the Belgian Air Force from January 1979 and to Norway from 1980. In the early F-16 deal, Fokker-made components went to Fort Worth for fuselage assembly and came back to Belgium for final assembly.

Airbus parts and rockets

Civil and space work followed. Since a first risk-sharing contract in 1989 SABCA has worked on every Airbus programme, and it has built parts for Spacelab, Ariane and Vega. It employed 993 people in 2020 and is owned by Orizio, itself held by the Belgian federal holding SFPIM and Sabena Aerospace. A composites subsidiary, SABCA Limburg, followed in 1992, and SABCA also makes subassemblies for Dassault and Gulfstream. It also worked on the A380, A400M and A350 programmes.

Fábricas

• Haren works · Haren, Brussels — First site, beside Haren airfield; headquarters
• Charleroi works · Gosselies, Charleroi — Opened 1955; F-16 assembly
• SABCA Limburg · Limburg — Composite components subsidiary

Récords y primicias

• One of the two European F-16 final assembly lines, launched 1 July 1977