British Aircraft Corporation

The British Aircraft Corporation, or BAC, is a British aircraft manufacturer, formed from the forced merger of the Bristol Aeroplane Company, English Electric, Vickers-Armstrong and Hunting in 1959. Meanwhile a similar merger created the Hawker-Siddeley Group, while engine design and manufacturing was concentrated at Rolls-Royce and the newly formed Bristol-Siddeley Engines, and helicopters at Westland Helicopters.

Most of the BAC designs were taken over from the individual companies that formed it. English Electric's latest design would become the ill-fated TSR-2 supersonic strike aircraft. After successfully flying prototype aircraft, political pressure forced development to cease and the remaining airframes and most supporting equipment and documentation be destroyed.

Hunting's design for a short-range airliner continued as well, becoming the BAC 1-11, which sold fairly well into the 1970s. Bristol had escewed the subsonic airliner market and was working on the Bristol 223 supersonic transport, which was eventually merged with similar efforts at Sud Aviation) to create the Anglo-French Concorde venture.

Later consolidation in the aerospace industry resulted in the company merging into British Aerospace in 1977; Sud Aviation similarly merged with Nord Aviation to form Aerospatiale.