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Societe Anonyme Belge de Constructions Aeronautiques (SABCA)
Belgian Aircraft Production Company

Societe Anonyme Belge de Constructions Aeronautiques (SABCA) [Belgian Aircraft Production Company] is one of the main aerospace companies in Belgium. The vast majority of the 2.400.000 shares belong since 1968 to two important players in the aerospace world : the French Dassault Group on one side and the Dutch Stork Group [Fokker] on the other side. SABCA customers and partners belong to the elite of the aerospace world and are spread worldwide. SABCA has built an extensive and varied know-how based on its 90+ years experience in designing, building and upgrading large and complex elements for aircraft and space launchers.

SABCA was founded in 1920 with the task of designing and building aircraft for the emerging air transport in Belgium. The plant was located on the Haren airport, located in the suburbs of Brussels. Several original designs were put on the market by the company before WW2, in parallel with the production under licence of numerous civil and military aircraft. After the war, SABCA became a major partner in most Belgian military aircraft production and upgrade programs like the Hunter, F-84, F-104G, Dassault Mirage 5, Lockheed F-16, Agusta 109 Helicopter, etc… A new plant was opened in 1955 on the Charleroi airport for that purpose.

In a move towards diversification in the field of high technologies, SABCA was among the early participants in the European space programs and has since more than 40 years designed and manufactured major elements of the European Spacelab and large parts of the Ariane and Vega launchers. On the civil aircraft side, SABCA had a slow start with the production of the outer wings of the Fokker 27/50 family, the flaps of the Dassault Mercure, the flaps again for the VFW-614 and other more or less successful projects. However, the civil aircraft activity really took a boost in 1989 when a first risk-sharing contract was signed with Airbus. Since that day, SABCA has been selected as a partner for all new Airbus programs, including the giant A380. SABCA also produces metallic and composite subassemblies for the Dassault and Gulfstream business jets programs.

By late 1959, Belgium and the Netherlands decided to integrate the F-104G into their aircraft inventories. They entered into an agreement with Germany to coproduce the F-104G in March 1960. The three countries agreed to produce 739 F-04Gs through this arrangement with 364 going to Germany, 200 going to the Netherlands and 175 going to Belgium. Companies in each of the three countries formed a consortium for this project and becare known as the Northern Group. This group consisted of the Belgium companies of Fairey, SABCA, and Fabrique Nationale d' Armes de Guerre; the German companies of Hamburger Flugzeugbau, Weser Flugzeugbau,and Foche-Wolfe; and the Netherlands companies of Fokker, Aviolanda, and Philips. Italy joined the other three F-104 manufaacturing countries later in 1960, thus forming the four-nation European Consortium.

Belgium was one of four European members of the NATO F-16 partnership, and one of two initially responsible for the European production of F-16s [the other being Fokker Schiphol, the Netherlands, the Turkish F-16 aircraft coproduction program being added later]. The primary Belgian contractor in the F-16 program was the Societe Anonyme Belge de Constructions Aeronautiques (SABCA), which was responsible for the final assembly of F-16s intended for both Belgian and Danish service. Fabrique National manufactured the F100 engines for the F-16s of all four nations in the European consortium.

Belgium is one of four original countries comprising the European Participating Governments (EPG) that launched the international co production of the F-16. The first European F-16 assembly line opened in 1978 in Belgium. The Belgian contractors were SABCA and SONACA for the airframe and Fabrique National (now Techspace Aero) for the engines. The Belgian company MBLE produced the F-16 radar for three of the four EPG nations. Through the 1990s and into the 2000s, SABCA and its technology partners SONACA and Fabrisys have continued to upgrade F-16s in Belgium through the Mid-Life Update (MLU) program. Lockheed Martin provided Belgian tactical fighters with advanced survivability through the Self-Protection Electronic Warfare Systems (SPEWS).

Fairey SA of Belgium, one of the initial major F-16 European co-producers, was to manufacture components for U.S. and EPG aircraft and assemble 174 of the EPG aircraft. On 12 October 1977, Fairey Limited of London, the parent company of the Belgian coproducer, declared bankruptcy; and Fairey SA was forced into receivership although its manufacturing operations continued. In May 1978, a new corporation called Sonaca was formed to take over the military activities of the Fairey operation. Although the new corporation sustained operations, it fell behind schedule. In June 1978, the F-16 SPO Director designated a special team to review the Sonaca operations and make recommendations for improvement. The team noted areas of weakness in Sonaca's middle management, scheduling, and staffing.

In early 1978, the first European F-16 assembly line opened at SABCA, followed by the first flight of a Belgian-built F-16 in December 1978. The aircraft was accepted by the Belgian Air Force in January 1979. This was the first locally built F-16 to be delivered to a European operator. The original Belgian order was for 116 F-16 aircraft. Beginning in September 1981, 35 early-production Belgian F-16s were rotated back through the SABCA factory for cockpit modifications and avionics updates. The modifications effectively brought the aircraft to Block 10 standards. Delivery of these first 116 aircraft to the Belgian Air Force was completed in May 1985. A follow-on order of 44 Block 15 Operations Capability Upgrade (OCU) aircraft was placed in February 1983 and delivered between 1987 and 1991.

As stated in the 10 June 1975 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), the objectives of the European Participating Governments USAF-EPG F-16 program were (1) to acquire a low cost, easily maintained aircraft with advanced avionics and weapons capability; (2) to standardize fighter aircraft in NATO, thus contributing to greater NATO rationalization, standardization, and interoperability (RSI); (3) to allow the EPG countries to acquire advanced technology; and (4) to make optimum use of EPG industrial, economic, and technical resources in the production of the aircraft.

The original Belgian Air Force (BAF) purchase under the terms of this MOU was for 116 F-16 A/B aircraft at a purchase price of $949 million, with significant Belgian industry coproduction and indirect offsets written into the program. Under the terms of the MOU, the U.S. contractors were to place contracts with industry in the participating EPG countries equal to 58 percent of the procurement value of the 348 EPG and 650 USAF aircraft, with an additional guarantee of offsets equaling 15 percent of any third country sales of the F-16. Specific Belgian co-production arrangements of the original purchase included the mate through delivery of the 116 Belgian and 58 Danish aircraft, the final assembly of the engine, major airframe components manufactured for the USAF original 650 aircraft acquisition, and the continued co-production of major airframe components and subsystems for third country aircraft in quantities commensurate with the achievement of offset credit equal to 15 percent of their procurement value.

In addition, in 1982 Belgium agreed to purchase an additional 44 F-16 aircraft at a purchase price of $632 million, which included indirect offsets of 22 percent and direct offsets of 58 percent of the procurement value. Belgian industrial participation for this follow-on buy was similar to the original arrangement, with continued mate through delivery of the BAF planes, final assembly of Pratt & Whitney F-100 engines, manufacture of aircraft fuselages, wings and engine modules for both the BAF and USAF aircraft, and additional work in the manufacture of airframe subcomponents and subsystems for BAF, USAF, and third country aircraft.

The sheer magnitude of the BAF F-16 program, both in terms of dollar value and involvement of Belgian defense industries in a major coproduction arrangement, clearly made it the most important security assistance program between the US and Belgium. More importantly, however, were the program objectives which recognized that due to the tremendous costs of sophisticated weapons systems and the impact which these costs can have on a country's defense planning, the "old" method of business wherein countries came to the US via the "one-way street" of FMS sales was no longer necessarily operative. Terms such as NATO RSI, technology transfer, and coproduction had now become the watchwords for conducting business in the arms transfer arena, and the use of formal MOUs, such as the one establishing the F-16 program, became indispensible to the conduct of cooperative efforts in defense procurement.

In 1977, the Culver-Nunn Amendment to the Defense Appropriation Authorization Act (P.L. 94-361) authorized DOD to make exceptions to the Buy American Act and similar legislation in order to promote a "two-way street" concept of cooperation in defense procurement among NATO allies to further NATO RSI as a means of improving military readiness among the Alliance. In 1983, the Roth-Glenn-Nunn Amendment (P.L. 97-252) reaffirmed this commitment to NATO cooperation and became the foundation of DOD's MOU program of bilateral procurement agreements with NATO allies. While these MOUs do not guarantee business or defense procurement contracts to foreign defense firms, they did provide an opportunity for U.S. and allied industry to compete for defense business with lowered legal obstacles on both sides.