Parts maker in an occupied country

SIPA was founded in 1938 and spent its first years as a subcontractor, making parts for other French manufacturers such as ANF Les Mureaux and Loire. Under the occupation it was requisitioned to work for Arado, and in 1943 it was ordered to build three prototypes and 25 pre-series examples of the Ar 396, a wooden, low-strategic-material derivative of the Ar 96 trainer. Even the famous designer Émile Dewoitine set up a design office for SIPA in October 1941.

An Arado for France

Liberation turned the German project into a French one. As the SIPA S.10, S.11 and all-metal S.12, the design became a standard Armée de l’Air trainer, 188 of all versions being built until 1958; armed S.11s flew ground-attack missions in Algeria. In 1947 Yves Gardan’s S.90 won a government competition for a two-seat aero club aircraft, and the state ordered 100 of the S.901 version for French flying clubs.

The Minijet

Gardan then designed SIPA’s most daring aircraft. The twin-boom S.200 Minijet, powered by a small Turbomeca Palas turbojet, first flew on 14 January 1952 and was claimed as the first jet-powered light touring aircraft. A general-aviation slump meant only seven were built. SIPA carried on in smaller ways, including the S.1000 Coccinelle of 1956–57, until Aerospatiale absorbed it in 1975.

אֲנָשִׁים

• Georges Volland · founder (per French sources)
• Émile Dewoitine · designer — Set up a SIPA design office in October 1941
• Yves Gardan · designer — S.90 and S.200 Minijet

שיאים וראשונות

• S.200 Minijet: claimed first jet-powered light touring aircraft, 1952