Bristol Aerojet (BAJ) was a joint venture between the

Bristol Aeroplane Company 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 a ...

of the United Kingdom and Aerojet General of the US begun in 1959 using the existing factory at Banwell near Weston super Mare, England.

History

Banwell aircraft factory 1941-59

Built in 1941 under the authority of the

Minister of Aircraft Production The Minister of Aircraft Production was, from 1940 to 1945, the British government minister at the Ministry of Aircraft Production, one of the specialised supply ministries set up by the British Government during World War II. It was responsible ...

, the works was operated by the

to build and repair Bristol Beaufort and

Bristol Beaufighter The Bristol Type 156 Beaufighter (often called the Beau) is a British multi-role aircraft developed during the Second World War by the Bristol Aeroplane Company. It was originally conceived as a heavy fighter variant of the Bristol Beaufort ...

torpedo fighter-bombers and

Hawker Tempest The Hawker Tempest is a British fighter aircraft that was primarily used by the Royal Air Force (RAF) in the Second World War. The Tempest, originally known as the ''Typhoon II'', was an improved derivative of the Hawker Typhoon, intended to a ...

fighters. After the war the company built pre-fab houses and schools there until the mid-fifties, and then rocket-motor manufacturing required by the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...

took over.

Bristol/Aerojet technical collaboration

Discussions with

Aerojet 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. I ...

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 The waxwings are three species of passerine birds classified in the genus ''Bombycilla''. They are pinkish-brown and pale grey with distinctive smooth plumage in which many body feathers are not individually visible, a black and white eyestri ...

apogee-stage motor for the

Black Arrow Black Arrow, officially capitalised BLACK ARROW, was a British satellite carrier rocket. Developed during the 1960s, it was used for four launches between 1969 and 1971, all launched from the Woomera Prohibited Area in Australia. Its final fl ...

rocket which was used to put the

Prospero Prospero ( ) is a fictional character and the protagonist of William Shakespeare's play '' The Tempest''. Prospero is the rightful Duke of Milan, whose usurping brother, Antonio, had put him (with his three-year-old daughter, Miranda) to se ...

telecommunications satellite in orbit in 1971

Financial problems 1970 to 1984

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 missile Rapier is a surface-to-air missile developed for the British Army to replace their towed Bofors 40/L70 anti-aircraft guns. The system is unusual as it uses a manual optical guidance system, sending guidance commands to the missile in flight ove ...

s, sounding rockets, and very large contracts from RPE Westcott on the

Chevaline Chevaline () was a system to improve the penetrability of the warheads used by the UK Polaris programme, British Polaris nuclear weapons system. Devised as an answer to the improved Soviet Union, Soviet A-35 anti-ballistic missile system, anti- ...

project. However, the nuclear team survived, and began new work for the

Admiralty Admiralty most often refers to: *Admiralty, Hong Kong *Admiralty (United Kingdom), military department in command of the Royal Navy from 1707 to 1964 *The rank of admiral *Admiralty law Admiralty can also refer to: Buildings * Admiralty, Traf ...

. 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.

Independence and diversification

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.

Closure

With the disintegration of the USSR after 1989, it was agreed that rocket work should be sold to

Royal Ordnance Royal Ordnance plc was formed on 2 January 1985 as a public corporation, owning the majority of what until then were the remaining United Kingdom government-owned Royal Ordnance Factories (abbreviated ROFs) which manufactured explosives, ammuniti ...

, 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.

Rocket products

*Bullpup booster for ramjet test vehicles *Rocket motor casings for Martin Bullpup air-launched missileS. Parsons =Shadow to Shadow= BAJ Coatings Ltd; page 26 *Gosling booster for

Bristol Bloodhound 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 ...

and

Sea Slug Sea slug is a common name for some marine invertebrates with varying levels of resemblance to terrestrial slugs. Most creatures known as sea slugs are gastropods, i.e. they are sea snails (marine gastropod mollusks) that over evolutionary tim ...

missile *Retriever (developed Gosling) for Sea Slug *Deerhound and Foxhound sustainer for Sea Slug (design by

Summerfield Research Station The Summerfield Research Station is a development and production site for solid rocket motors in the United Kingdom officially formed on 1 September 1951 by the Ministry of Supply. It was set up on the grounds of a former World War II munitions ...

) *Retriever sustainer motor for Sea Slug *Sealyham motor for Sea Cat surface-to-air missile (design by SRS) *Troy motor for

Rapier A rapier () or is a type of sword with a slender and sharply-pointed two-edged blade that was popular in Western Europe, both for civilian use (dueling and self-defense) and as a military side arm, throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. Impo ...

surface-to-air missile (design by SRS) *Lapwing boost for Petrel sounding rocket * Skua sounding rocket *Hoopoe for Skyflash air-to-air missile *Waxwing motor for

third (apogee) stage *Raven for Skylark sounding rocket *Rocket components of

ICBM warhead *Magpie for

de Havilland Firestreak The de Havilland Firestreak is a British first-generation, passive infrared homing (heat seeking) air-to-air missile. It was developed by de Havilland Propellers (later Hawker Siddeley) in the early 1950s, entering service in 1957. It was the fi ...

;PERME design *Albatross sustainer for English Electric Thunderbird *Bantam for

Sea Skua The Sea Skua is a British lightweight short-range air-to-surface missile (ASM) designed for use from helicopters against ships. It was primarily used by the Royal Navy on the Westland Lynx. Although the missile is intended for helicopter use, Kuw ...

*Blackcap boost motor for Sea Wolf missile *Buzzard for

Red Dean Red Dean, a rainbow code name, was a large air-to-air missile developed for the Royal Air Force during the 1950s. Originally planned to use an active radar seeker to offer all-aspect performance and true fire-and-forget engagements, the valve- ...

air-to-air missile project *Crake for Blowpipe *Cuckoo for Blue Water and Skylark

References

;Notes ;Bibliography * * * *
1960s advert
{{Authority control Defunct aircraft engine manufacturers of the United Kingdom Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings Manufacturing companies established in 1959 Manufacturing companies disestablished in 1996 Rocket engine manufacturers of the United Kingdom Science and technology in Somerset Weston-super-Mare 1959 establishments in England 1996 disestablishments in England