Société des Avions Marcel Bloch
The Societé des Avions Marcel Bloch was a French aircraft manufacturer. The company was renamed in 1947 in Dassault Aviation.
History
The company was founded in 1928 by Marcel Bloch, after it had received from the French Ministry of Aviation a production order for a three -engine mail plane. 1931 Further successes came with the Air Ambulance Bloch MB.80 (this type was in France called medeveac ) and the transport and passenger aircraft Bloch MB.120 a. Both types received large orders from the government. Initial location of the company was Boulogne- Billancourt, where Marcel Bloch initially some young engineers, including Henri Deplante, hired and rented an unused garage. The good order situation allowed but as early as 1932 to rent larger properties. The company headquarters was relocated in this course to Courbevoie.
A major new contract gave the company the bomber Bloch MB.200 of 1933, of the 208 machines for the Armée de l'air had been ordered. 1934 bought Marcel Bloch, together with Henry Potez Société Bordelaise Aérienne on which du Sud -Ouest restructured to Société Aéronautique and was entrusted with the production of MB.200. In addition, the Societé des Avions Marcel Bloch awarded a production license to Aero and Avia in Czechoslovakia, where a further 124 pieces were made.
The construction Bloch MB.210 of 1934 won the tender for a new standard bomber of the Armée de l'air. From this type of 298 units were produced, of which 24 are for export to Romania. Although it later turned out that the technical performance of this type have not been up to expectations, Marcel Bloch had secured at least with this order a permanent place in the French aviation industry. Due to the success of the company was the creation of new production facilities in Châteauroux- Déols, Villacoublay and Bordeaux.
In 1937 there was a nationalization of the aviation industry in France. Marcel Bloch was formally expropriated and summarized its factories under the newly-founded Société Nationale de Constructions Aéronautiques du Sud -Ouest ( SNCASO ). He remained, however, the technical director of the new company and retained the upper hand over the development of new designs. In an attempt to maintain its corporate independence, founded Marcel Bloch 1936, the Société Anonyme des Avions Marcel Bloch ( SAAMB ), headquartered in Courbevoie. This approach was, however, put an end in February 1937, when the SAAMB was incorporated by decision of the Ministry of Aviation in the SNCASO. Then Bloch opened together with Henry Potez a design office in Paris.
Because of the rise of Hitler's Germany, the French government set up in 1937 an extensive upgrade program going. Marcel Bloch was once again draw attention to themselves with successful designs, especially with the fighter planes of the Bloch MB.150 series and the reconnaissance bomber Bloch MB.174, which were mass-produced until the capitulation of France in June 1940 by the SNCASO. Even in the civilian sector received the SNCASO orders for the production of Bloch- constructions, including the successful passenger type Bloch MB.161. It was also planned to produce the military modified Bloch type MB.162 as a heavy bomber for the Armée de l'air, but no longer what it was before the fall of France.
Marcel Bloch in 1938 bought land in Saint-Cloud, and began the construction of a new factory, which should be active in the aircraft engine and propeller production. These two areas were not then nationalized in contrast to the airframe production. In September 1939, was an expansion through the purchase of industrial buildings in Talence, near Bordeaux.
After the French defeat Marcel Bloch was vilified and interned in October 1940 by the Vichy regime. The German Air Force showed great interest in his designs, especially on the Bloch MB.175, but he refused to collaborate as much as possible. During the occupation, the Bloch factories were under the German Junkers Group. Many designers of the Societé des Avions Marcel Bloch sat from 1942 increasingly in the UK and Spain to Algeria from to get there to join the Free French. 1944 Marcel Bloch was deported because of his Jewish origins to the Buchenwald concentration camp and returned to the camp's liberation in April 1945 back to France.
Marcel Bloch ventured a fresh start and reorganized the locations in Saint-Cloud, Boulogne- Billancourt and Talence again to Avions Marcel Bloch Société Anonyme des. The company took over at this stage mainly contract work for SNCASO, SNCASE and Latécoère.
On January 20, 1947 arose from the SAAMB the company Dassault Aviation, after Marcel Bloch changed his name to Marcel Dassault.
Known designs
Civilian types in italics: