Fairey Aviation Company
 |
|
| Industry | aviation, engineering |
|---|---|
| Fate | Defunct |
| Successor | WFEL Limited, Spectris |
| Founded | 1915 |
| Defunct | 1960 (aircraft manufacturing) |
| Headquarters | Hayes, Heaton Chapel, Ringway, UK |
|
Key people
|
Charles Richard Fairey, Marcel Lobelle |
| Products |
Swordfish, Delta 2, Medium Girder Bridge |
The Fairey Aviation Company Limited was a British aircraft manufacturer of the first half of the 20th century based in Hayes in Middlesex and Heaton Chapel and RAF Ringway in Lancashire. Notable for the design of a number of important military aircraft, including the Fairey III family, the Swordfish, Firefly, and Gannet, it had a strong presence in the supply of naval aircraft, and also built bombers for the RAF.
After the Second World War the company diversified into mechanical engineering and boat-building. The aircraft manufacturing arm was taken over by Westland Aircraft in 1960. Following a series of mergers and takeovers, the principal successor businesses to the company now trade as FBM Babcock Marine Ltd, Spectris plc, and WFEL (formerly Williams Fairey Engineering Limited) the latter manufacturing portable bridges.
Founded in 1915 by Charles Richard Fairey (later Sir Richard Fairey) and Belgian engineer Ernest Oscar Tips on their departure from Short Brothers, the company first built under licence or as subcontractor aircraft designed by other manufacturers. The first aircraft designed and built by the Fairey Aviation specifically for use on an aircraft carrier was the Fairey Campania a patrol seaplane that first flew in February 1917. In the third report of the Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors, reported in Flight magazine of 15 January 1925, aviation figures prominently. C. R. Fairey and the Fairey Aviation Co., Ltd., was awarded £4,000 for work on the Hamble Baby seaplane.
Fairey subsequently designed many aircraft types and, after World War II, missiles.
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Wikipedia