 to be delivered to France. There was
also some good news during
this obscure period. Stampe & Renard succeeded in exporting the SV4 to France and the same country expressed great interests in the acquisition of
some Renard R36 family of fighters, SABCA S47 fighters and SABCA S40 trainers.
In May 1940, the first locally produced Hurricanes was ready to leave the Avions Fairey factory. Plans were to dispose of modern hardware for
the spring of 1941. The dependence of foreign supply for engines was then critical, with Hurricanes waiting their Merlin at the factories. The
attack of May 10th 1940 stopped this process in its tracks. That morning, the airfields
of Deurne, Evere and Gosselies housing Stampe & Renard, SABCA and Fairey were bombed. The personal of the various companies evacuated to France, losing some precious
the prototype of the Renard R38 during the trip. In Bordeaux, some specialists worked for a short period with the local aeronautical companies.
The most successfull Belgian aircraft : The Stampe & Vertongen SV4
The Germans tried to use the limited aircraft production facilities located in Belgium
to their own advantage. The Stampe & Renard facilities in Deurne were used to repair
Messerschmidt fighters. In Brussels they tried to restart the activities of SABCA by
appointing a German administrator. However
faced with resistance of the administrators of the company they used the SABCA installations
only for limited repair work under full German control as wa the case at Deurne.
Back to work
In September 1944, when the country was liberated, the Stampe & Vertongen
plant was totally destroyed. The SABCA installations
were severely damaged and the usable workshops were requisitioned by the RAF to be used as transit hospitals. More dramatic was the fact
that most of the machine tools were destroyed. The Renard workshops were miraculously preserved and Stampe joined his former associated to
start a new business under the Stampe & Renard name. They quickly restarted negotiations
for the sale of SV4's to France which were stopped by the outbreak of the war. As production was almost impossible in Belgium, they associated with the French company Farman to produce 700 SV4's in France. The
company would survive until 1970, its last prototype being the Farman Monitor, a small beautiful training and acrobatic aircraft. To the end of the
activities, Alfred Renard studied numerous projects. The SV4c remains today the most significant aircraft ever produced in Belgium.
SABCA went back to business very slowly, disposing of only limited facilities,
the company assembled Jeeps for the national market. In 1948 the Belgian air force
acquired Gloster Meteor IV's in the UK while Sabena acquired Douglas airliners in the USA. There
were no projects to build these aircraft locally as the market was saturised
with cheap aircraft made available after the war.
The start of the cold war changed the situation. Ambitious plans were draw to reinforce the Belgian and Dutch air force.
The Gloster Meteor F8 was selected
as the standard day fighter to be subject of mass-produced. As the UK industry was
not able to fulfill all the needs, Fokker and Fairey received contracts to
produce the Meteor under license. Stampe & Renard was contracted to maintain the various light aircraft
operated by the air force: Tiger Moth, Auster and
later new build SV4.
The Belgian Air Force learn the lesson of the thirties and an aircraft engine industry was started in Liège at the renowned FN
Nationale d’armes) company. Jet engines were produced and maintained for aircraft by the NATO air forces.
The Meteor F8 contracts were followed by others for Hunters F4 and F6. This time SABCA
was involved in the project. As the USAF presence
increased in Europe SABCA was also contracted to inspect and repairs various US aircraft as
HSS Choctaw helicopter or the F84F Thunderstreak. Since
1953, SABCA owned additional installations at Gosselies.
The SABCA Factory at Gosselies at the end of the fifties.
In the late fifties, SABCA was associated with various NATO studies and projec