Bristol Aerojet (BAJ) was a joint venture between the Bristol Aeroplane Company of the United Kingdom and Aerojet General of the US begun in 1959 using the existing factory at Banwell near Weston super Mare, England.
Built in 1941 under the authority of the Minister of Aircraft Production, the works was operated by the Bristol Aeroplane Company to build and repair Bristol Beaufort and Bristol Beaufighter torpedo fighter-bombers and Hawker Tempest fighters. After the war the company used the works to build pre-fab houses and schools until the mid-fifties, and then to manufacture rocket-motors required by the Cold War.
Discussions with Aerojet of California USA took place aimed at exploiting the varied rocket-making skills of the two companies, and in 1959 the Banwell works became Bristol Aerojet (BAJ), with a board chaired by Sir Reginald Verdon-Smith of Bristol Aeroplane Company, with Dan Kimball leading the Aerojet representation. Co-operation began with the Blue Water lorry-launched battlefield nuclear missile, but the Blue Water project was cancelled in 1962, and so the MoS had no application for the polyurethane propellant which was promoted by Aerojet. BAJ Banwell concentrated on development of improved rocket motor cases and their materials, and here Aerojet assistance was valuable. A contract was executed for 5,500 motor cases for the Martin 'Bullpup' missile for Nato. Gosling (for Bloodhound), Retriever (Sea Slug), 3000 Sealyham (Sea Cat), and Troy (Rapier) motor cases were built under the Design Authority of the Rocket Propulsion Establishment Westcott, a Ministry of Supply establishment. With the next project, Blackcap, BAJ became Design Authority, and its manufacture featured electron beam welding allowing assembly of fully machined components. At the end of the Sixties BAJ developed the Waxwing apogee-stage motor for the Black Arrow rocket which was used to put the Prospero telecommunications satellite in orbit in 1971 [1]
In 1970 Dan Kimball retired from the Board of BAJ, and thereafter Aerojet became only a financial partner, and after BAJ's subsidiary SORTRAC, a mechanical handling firm, went bankrupt, Aerojet refused to agree to capital reconstruction. The Bristol Aeroplane Company's operations – along with the majority of British aircraft and aero-engine manufacture – had been restructured at Government insistence during the 1960s and its half-share in BAJ had passed to Rolls-Royce Ltd, which in 1971 was effectively bankrupt and subsequently nationalised, resulting in restrictions being placed on BAJ by the Receiver. Ron Howarth was appointed managing director at Banwell, and supervised withdrawal from several activities considered high-risk such as nuclear engineering and re-focussed on Troy cases for Rapier missiles, sounding rockets, and very large contracts from RPE Westcott on the Chevaline project. However, the nuclear team survived, and began new work for the Admiralty.
The receivership following the Rolls-Royce crash eventually resulted in 1979 in BAJ being sold to Vickers Ltd, while business continued with production of Hoopoe and Blackcap motors as well as Chevaline. However, at this time the incoming Thatcher Government reviewed Ministry research establishments and promoted a more industrial role for them, undermining the arrangements under which BAJ had acted as contractor to the rocket establishments. Vickers therefore downgraded their commitment to BAJ and sold the firm in 1984 to a management buy-out from the Crowther Dash consortium.
The new BAJ Ltd operated as five divisions - Rockets, Coatings, Naval Systems, Composites and Stored Energy, and made sales of £13.5 million in its first year, lasting as an independent company until 1987 when it was sold to Meggitt Holdings plc. At this time the freehold of the Banwell site, leased for 21 years in 1964 from the Government at £20,000 a year, was being negotiated and it was actually acquired on 29 April 1988. The workforce was then 463, but with reduced prospects for rocket production it went down to 337 during the year.
With the disintegration of the USSR after 1989, it was agreed that rocket work should be sold to Royal Ordnance, and the transfer was signed on 28 June 1991. Fewer than 200 employees remained on the Banwell site, and the main production was via the Coatings activity, providing a range of both Thermally Sprayed and Electroplated (Tribomet©) coatings for both aerospace and industrial applications. Particular success was gained in later years via the development of a novel plated turbine abrasive tip coatings which helped with the reduction of clearance between the turbine blade and casing in a typical gas turbine engine. After a period 1993-6 when the Bristol Aero Collection occupied Shop No 1, the works were finally closed and Meggitt Aerospace moved elsewhere in Weston super Mare finally selling the Coatings business to Praxair Surface Technologies. The factory was demolished in October 1998 by Wimpey Ltd, to be replaced by 173 new houses in the hamlet of Elborough.
The Bristol Aeroplane Company, originally the British and Colonial Aeroplane Company, was both one of the first and one of the most important British aviation companies, designing and manufacturing both airframes and aircraft engines. Notable aircraft produced by the company include the 'Boxkite', the Bristol Fighter, the Bulldog, the Blenheim, the Beaufighter, and the Britannia, and much of the preliminary work which led to Concorde was carried out by the company. In 1956 its major operations were split into Bristol Aircraft and Bristol Aero Engines. In 1959, Bristol Aircraft merged with several major British aircraft companies to form the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC) and Bristol Aero Engines merged with Armstrong Siddeley to form Bristol Siddeley.
The British Aircraft Corporation (BAC) was a British aircraft manufacturer formed from the government-pressured merger of English Electric Aviation Ltd., Vickers-Armstrongs (Aircraft), the Bristol Aeroplane Company and Hunting Aircraft in 1960. Bristol, English Electric and Vickers became "parents" of BAC with shareholdings of 20%, 40% and 40% respectively. BAC in turn acquired the share capital of their aviation interests and 70% of Hunting Aircraft several months later.
The Aerobee rocket was one of the United States' most produced and productive sounding rockets. Developed by the Aerojet Corporation, the Aerobee was designed to combine the altitude and launching capability of the V-2 with the cost effectiveness and mass production of the WAC Corporal. More than 1000 Aerobees were launched between 1947 and 1985, returning vast amounts of astronomical, physical, aeronomical, and biomedical data.
Bristol Aerospace is a Canadian aerospace firm located in Winnipeg, Manitoba and is an operating division of Magellan Aerospace. Once part of the Bristol Aeroplane Company, today it is known as Magellan Aerospace, Winnipeg.
Sea Wolf is a naval surface-to-air missile system designed and built by BAC, later to become British Aerospace (BAe) Dynamics, and now MBDA. It is an automated point-defence weapon system designed as a short-range defence against both sea-skimming and high angle anti-ship missiles and aircraft. The Royal Navy has fielded two versions, the GWS-25 Conventionally Launched Sea Wolf (CLSW) and the GWS-26 Vertically Launched Sea Wolf (VLSW) forms. In Royal Navy service Sea Wolf is being replaced by Sea Ceptor.
The Bristol Bloodhound is a British ramjet powered surface-to-air missile developed during the 1950s. It served as the UK's main air defence weapon into the 1990s and was in large-scale service with the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the forces of four other countries.
Armstrong Siddeley was a British engineering group that operated during the first half of the 20th century. It was formed in 1919 and is best known for the production of luxury vehicles and aircraft engines.
Blue Water was a British battlefield nuclear missile of the early 1960s, intended to replace the MGM-5 Corporal, which was becoming obsolete. With roughly the same role and range as Corporal, the solid-fuel Blue Water was far simpler to use and would be significantly easier to support in the field. It was seen as a replacement for Corporal both in the UK as well as other NATO operators, notably Germany and possibly Turkey.
The Hughes AIM-47 Falcon, originally GAR-9, was a very long-range high-performance air-to-air missile that shared the basic design of the earlier AIM-4 Falcon. It was developed in 1958 along with the new Hughes AN/ASG-18 radar fire-control system intended to arm the Mach 3 XF-108 Rapier interceptor aircraft and, after that jet's cancellation, the YF-12A. It was never used operationally, but was a direct predecessor of the AIM-54 Phoenix used on the Grumman F-14 Tomcat.
Bristol Siddeley Engines Ltd (BSEL) was a British aero engine manufacturer. The company was formed in 1959 by a merger of Bristol Aero-Engines Limited and Armstrong Siddeley Motors Limited. In 1961 the company was expanded by the purchase of the de Havilland Engine Company and the engine division of Blackburn Aircraft. Bristol Siddeley was purchased by Rolls-Royce Limited in 1966.
Aerojet was an American rocket and missile propulsion manufacturer based primarily in Rancho Cordova, California, with divisions in Redmond, Washington, Orange and Gainesville in Virginia, and Camden, Arkansas. Aerojet was owned by GenCorp. In 2013, Aerojet was merged by GenCorp with the former Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne to form Aerojet Rocketdyne.
The Scout family of rockets were American launch vehicles designed to place small satellites into orbit around the Earth. The Scout multistage rocket was the first orbital launch vehicle to be entirely composed of solid fuel stages. It was also the only vehicle of that type until the successful launch of the Japanese Lambda 4S in 1970.
Captain Robert C. Truax (USN) was an American rocket engineer in the United States Navy, and companies such as Aerojet and Truax Engineering, which he founded. Truax was a proponent of low-cost rocket engine and vehicle designs.
The Rocket Propulsion Establishment at Westcott, Buckinghamshire on the site of the former RAF Westcott has made a number of notable contributions in the field of rocket propulsion, including input on the rocket design for the Blue Streak missile and the propulsion systems on Chevaline. It was also known as the Guided Projectiles Establishment and PERME Westcott.
The aerospace industry of the United Kingdom is the second-largest national aerospace industry in the world and the largest in Europe by turnover, with a global market share of 17% in 2019. In 2020, the industry employed 116,000 people.
Waxwing was a British solid rocket motor used for apogee kick as the 3rd (upper) stage of the Black Arrow satellite launch vehicles. It was also known as Black Arrow-3. Waxwing was used to successfully place the Prospero X-3 satellite into low Earth orbit on 28 October 1971, Britain's only satellite launched on an indigenously developed launch vehicle. Before being separated from the Black Arrow launch vehicle, it would be spun on a turntable using six radial 'Imp' solid rocket motors to spin stabilise the satellite. This means that any discrepancy in thrust in any direction would be cancelled out. The Waxwing motor is now out of production.
The Gosling was a British single nozzle wrap around solid rocket booster developed by Bristol Aircraft Co. in the 1950s to act as a booster motor for the 'Red Duster' Bristol Ferranti Bloodhound for the RAF, the Sea Slug for the Royal Navy, and the Thunderbird for the British Army. All three are surface to air missiles. It would burn for between 8 and 12 seconds, providing an average thrust of 103.24kN which would allow the Bloodhound missile to reach Mach 2.2 and a maximum altitude of just over 21 km. It was used until 1968 by the RAAF when it was decommissioned. The Gosling also appear on the High Altitude Density (HAD), Cockatoo Mk1 and Mk2 and Aero High sounding rockets which were designed to conduct experiments in the upper atmosphere until 1975. Some of the early HAD experiments involved tracking an inflatable metal sphere through the atmosphere after the HAD and dropped it in the upper atmosphere. Later experiments would study the wind speed and direction among other atmospheric conditions deduced from 'lithium vapour grenades'. One difference is that as a strap on booster for the Bloodhound, the Gosling used a angled nozzle whereas on the HAD it employed a straight nozzle design.