Valtion lentokonetehdas
| Industry | Aerospace and defense |
|---|---|
| Successor | Valmet |
| Founded | 1928 |
| Defunct | 1951 |
| Headquarters | Helsinki, Finland |
| Products | Airplanes |
| Owner | Finland state |
Valtion lentokonetehdas (State aircraft factory) was a Finnish aircraft manufacturing company that was founded on 23 February 1928 from the IVL or I.V.L. factory (Ilmailuvoimien lentokonetehdas, Finnish Air Force Aircraft Factory).
The company was transferred from being subordinate to the Finnish Air Force to being subordinate to the Ministry of Defence. The company, and its products were named with the prefix VL.
The company began its production at Suomenlinna and Santahamina in Helsinki. The factory did not have an airport, only the sea and sea ice could be used for take-off and landing. Most of the aircraft built in Helsinki were seaplanes. In Helsinki the aircraft built were small compared to the Bristol Blenheim bombers built under licence in the late 1930s. Much of the final assembly was done outdoors. The company was looking for a new production facility further away from the Soviet Union. Helsinki was seen as a bad location for an armaments factory from a strategic viewpoint.
In the 1930s the factory was moved to Tampere, which was also a potential bombing target since it was the biggest industrial city in Finland. The build up of the factory and the airport around it gave work to hundreds of people in the depression of the 1930s. Politically Tampere was in the left which almost led to the factory being located to Vaasa.
Valtion lentokonetehdas was moved to Härmälä, near Tampere in 1936. During the Second World War, the VL serviced and assembled German (Junkers Ju 88) and British (Bristol Blenheim) bomber aircraft.
The Tampere factory employed 665 persons in 1936 and 1,697 persons by 1941. A major part of the work of the factory was overhaul and repair of military aircraft, building new aircraft was a secondary function and the design of indigenous aircraft a tertiary function.
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