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The Story of Safran Aircraft Engines – from 1945 to 2005
Re-baptized Safran Aircraft Engines in 2016, SNECMA resulted from the grouping of several private aeronautical companies, whose shares were transferred to the State by governmental order in May 1945. Let’s take a look back at its history prior to the creation of Safran.
Post-war reorganization
The nationalization of the Gnome & Rhône aircraft engine manufacturer on May 29, 1945, which had previously acquired other aeronautical companies, resulted in the creation of “Société Nationale d'Etudes et de Construction de Moteurs d'Aviation” (SNECMA).
At the time, the company had plants in Paris (boulevard Kellermann), Gennevilliers (forges and foundries), Argenteuil, Billancourt, Issy-les-Moulineaux, Suresnes and Arnage.
Following the war, SNECMA continued production of the piston engines developed by Gnome & Rhône. However, these programs were technically lagging behind American and British production. Due to financial and production organization issues in the late 1940s, the Argenteuil and Arnage plants were shut down. All non-aeronautical activities that produced at a loss were eliminated.
In April 1947, SNECMA acquired the land and facilities of the Villaroche site, which had been liberated by the United States Air Force. Thanks to the development of this test center, by the 1950s it was one of the best-equipped test flight airbases in Europe.
Henri Desbruères, who was appointed Chairman of SNECMA in 1949 by the French Air Ministry, began to turn the company around. As such, production was consolidated in three plants: Kellermann, dedicated to turbomachinery; Billancourt, dedicated to the production of piston engines; and Gennevilliers, which housed forges and foundries, as well as motorcycle production.
Like the other Allied countries after World War II, France recruited German technicians and engineers, including a group from BMW. Among them was Hermann Oestrich, who contributed to the modernization of SNECMA. In September 1945, he was appointed Head of the Rickenbach aeronautics technical workshop, which was initially located in Lindau, in the French zone, and later relocated to Decize (Nièvre) in 1946. This unit designed the first ATAR-series turbojet engines, which equipped Dassault’s Mirages, among other aircraft. The commercial release of these turbojet engines in the early 1950s marked the start of SNECMA’s technical and commercial success, and helped establish the company as one of France’s leading engine manufacturers.
The vitality of the design offices, driven by the command authorities’ interest in vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft, led to the launch of two projects that stood out from the crowd despite their short life: the C400, known as the “ATAR Volant” (flying VTOL), and the Coléoptère, which explored the possibilities of vertical flight.
The dawn of international collaboration
In the 1960s, SNECMA’s head office was relocated from the Boulevard Kellermann site in Paris to a new plant in Corbeil. In just twenty years, the company managed to become the second largest manufacturer in Europe, behind Rolls-Royce, and the fourth largest in the world, behind General Electric and Pratt & Whitney.
In the mid-1960s, high-power reactor technology was only held by the United States, Great Britain, the USSR and France. Other countries produced small reactors or manufactured under license. As program development became increasingly costly, the prospect of sharing risks and profits drove SNECMA to seek commercial and technical partnerships that extended beyond the purchase of manufacturing and resale licenses for domestic production.
In November 1962, Bristol Aero Engines (acquired by Rolls-Royce in 1966) and SNECMA decided to co-finance in equal shares the development of the Olympus 593 turbojet engine which would go on to power the Concorde supersonic airliner. Other aeronautical equipment was supplied by the companies that would soon form the Snecma Group: Messier’s electrically-controlled braking system, and Hispano-Suiza’s main landing gear and braking regulator. In November 1965, the first prototype of the Olympus 593 ran on the test bench in Villaroche. The following year, flight tests were carried out on the British Bombardier Avro Vulcan. In March 1969, the Concorde’s maiden flight took place in Toulouse. This flight marked the beginning of SNECMA’s development in civil aviation.
General Electric and SNECMA began collaborating for the first time in 1969. Together with the German company MTU (Motoren-und-Turbinen-Union), the two companies produced parts for the CF6-50 engine powering the Airbus A300. In January 1971, René Ravaud, Director of Programs and Industrial Affairs for the French Ministry of Defense since 1965, replaced Jacques Lamy as Chairman of SNECMA. With his arrival, cooperation with General Electric was strengthened around the design of a new civil engine. In 1974, CFM International, a 50/50 joint venture between SNECMA and General Electric, was officially created to develop, manufacture and market the CFM56 engine. This cooperation enabled SNECMA to establish itself in the civil sector. The CFM56 engine’s success led to a reorganization and modernization of the workshops, which, in turn, become more specialized. As such, the renovated Gennevilliers plant solidifies its role as a forge and foundry. The Corbeil plant takes on the role of production and assembly, while Villaroche oversees final engine assembly and testing.
Building an industrial group
Between 1967 and 1970, SNECMA acquired Turbomeca, Hispano-Suiza and Messier-Bugatti. The first of these companies concentrated on helicopter engine production, the second on power transmissions and thrust reversers, and the third on landing gear, wheels and brakes.
In 1969, the Société Européenne de Propulsion (SEP) was formed by consolidating the activities of the Société d'Etude de la Propulsion par Réaction (SEPR), of SNECMA’s Space Engine Division, and those of Nord-Aviation. This space propulsion company was tasked with the design of the new European Ariane launcher, whose first launch took place in December 1979. In 1984, SNECMA became the majority shareholder of the SEP. In 1987, it supplied the Viking engines (initially produced by the SEP in 1973 for the first versions of Ariane) which powered the Ariane 4. As of 1988, the Vulcain engine – another SEP creation developed by SNECMA – powered the Ariane 5. The SEP was definitively taken over by Snecma in 1997, and the aerospace business became a separate company activity until the creation of ArianeGroup (a 50/50 joint venture between Safran and Airbus) in 2015.
With the creation of its Sochata-Snecma subsidiary in 1975, the company began offering its customers civil and military repair services at its Boulogne-Billancourt, Villaroche and Châtellerault sites.
In the 1980s, a new military program was launched to power Dassault Aviation’s Rafale aircraft: the M88 engine. Bench tests began in early 1989, followed by flight tests the following year.
In regard to the civilian market, Snecma began participating in the development of General Electric’s GE90 engine as of 1989. The company was tasked with the design and manufacture of several modules, including all compressors, the FADEC engine control unit, the fan, and the thrust reverser. A dedicated forge was installed in Gennevilliers in order to produce very large blades, and new test equipment was developed in Villaroche. In fact, none of the site’s 24 test benches were large enough to accommodate this massive engine.
In the 1990s, the Boulogne-Billancourt plant was shut down and its activities were transferred to Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines; the operations of ELECMA, Snecma’s electronics division created in 1957, were transferred from the Suresnes to Villaroche plant; and Hispano-Suiza’s historic site located in Bois-Colombes was split up between the Gennevilliers and Colombes plants.
The arrival of Safran
In 2000, a holding company by the name of Snecma Group was created to manage the totality of the company’s shareholdings. Propulsion activities were then temporarily transferred to a subsidiary under the name of Snecma Moteurs. With the acquisition of Labinal, the Group further strengthened its position in the aerospace sector. The same year was also marked by the integration of Hurel-Dubois, which allowed Snecma to structure its aircraft engine nacelle production activities.
In 2005, the merger between Snecma and Sagem led to the creation of Safran, an industrial group specializing in aerospace, defense and security. Eleven years later, in 2016, all of the Group’s companies were brought together under a single logo and their original corporate names are changed to include the Safran brand into their names. Snecma, which had reverted to its original name at the time of the merger, thus became Safran Aircraft Engines.
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