The Service d'exploitation de la formation aéronautique (SEFA) was the French national

flight school Flight training is a course of study used when learning to pilot an aircraft. The overall purpose of primary and intermediate flight training is the acquisition and honing of basic airmanship skills. Flight training can be conducted under a str ...

, located in nine places in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

and managed by the

direction générale de l'aviation civile The Directorate General for Civil Aviation (french: Direction générale de l'aviation civile, DGAC) is the French civil aviation authority. Its headquarters are in the 15th arrondissement of Paris, 50 Henry-Farman. It is subordinate to the Minis ...

(DGAC). It merged with

École nationale de l'aviation civile École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

on January 1, 2011.

History

The development of light aviation between the two world war

SEFA is a direct descendant of a long tradition of state involvement in helping to light

aviation Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' includes fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air craft such as hot ...

. By 1936, the

Popular Front A popular front is "any coalition of working-class and middle-class parties", including liberal and social democratic ones, "united for the defense of democratic forms" against "a presumed Fascist assault". More generally, it is "a coalitio ...

creates the "''sections d’aviation populaire''" (SAP), in order to democratize the flight training for young people and then to train more crew for the French military aviation. In 1946, the "''service de l’aviation légère et sportive''" (SALS) is created, which purpose is essentially to provide available aircraft and

flight instructor A flight instructor is a person who teaches others to operate aircraft. Specific privileges granted to holders of a flight instructor qualification vary from country to country, but very generally, a flight instructor serves to enhance or evaluate ...

for

flying club A flying club or aero club is a not-for-profit, member-run organization that provides its members with affordable access to aircraft. Many clubs also provide flight training, flight planning facilities, pilot supplies and associated services, as ...

Many successive names

In 1955, SALS becomes the "''service de la formation aéronautique et des sports aériens''" (SFASA), in 1959 the "''service de la formation aéronautique, du travail aérien et des transports''" (SFATAT), in 1964 it is renamed "''service de la formation aéronautique''" (SFA) and finally the "''service de la formation aéronautique et du contrôle technique''" (SFACT) in 1976. These designations reflect the successive changes in the organization of the civil aviation administration, but also the direct involvement of the State, in flight training. Thus "national centers" were created: in 1945, for

gliding Gliding is a recreational activity and competitive air sport in which pilots fly unpowered aircraft known as gliders or sailplanes using naturally occurring currents of rising air in the atmosphere to remain airborne. The word ''soaring'' is ...

(

Challes-les-Eaux Challes-les-Eaux (; Arpitan: ''Chales''), known as Triviers until 1872, is a commune in the Savoie department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in Southeastern France. In 2019, it had a population of 5,609. Chambéry Aerodrome is located in ...

, Beynes,

Pont-Saint-Vincent Pont-Saint-Vincent () is a commune in the Meurthe-et-Moselle department in north-eastern France. Geography The river Madon flows into the Moselle The Moselle ( , ; german: Mosel ; lb, Musel ) is a river that rises in the Vosges mo ...

, etc.), and then for flight in piston-engined aircraft (

Carcassonne Carcassonne (, also , , ; ; la, Carcaso) is a French fortified city in the department of Aude, in the region of Occitanie. It is the prefecture of the department. Inhabited since the Neolithic, Carcassonne is located in the plain of the ...

in 1945,

Saint-Yan Saint-Yan is a commune in the Saône-et-Loire department in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté in eastern France. Geography The Arconce forms part of the commune's southern border and the Loire part of its western border. Climate Educ ...

in 1947), and

skydiving Parachuting, including also skydiving, is a method of transiting from a high point in the atmosphere to the surface of Earth with the aid of gravity, involving the control of speed during the descent using a parachute or parachutes. Fo ...

( Biscarosse in 1953).

A new mission: to train airline pilots

Over the years, the French civil aviation administration gradually withdraw from its activities in the field of

and

. In 1959, the center of

welcomes the first course of airline pilot students (EPL), ushering in a new mission of the SEFA : the training of

airline pilot An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators, because they ar ...

s. The national centers were attached to the service of the civil aviation administration in charge of training. The creation of a single management structure was needed. Thus was created the SEFA in 1993, bringing together under one organization all the necessary needs to implement the tasks entrusted by the DGAC. The direction of the SEFA moved to

Muret Muret (; in Gascon Occitan ''Murèth'') is a commune in the Haute-Garonne department, of which it is a subprefecture, in the Occitanie region of southwestern France. Its inhabitants are called ''Muretains''. It is an outer suburb of the c ...

in 1996, bringing together all central services previously scattered between

Saint-Cyr-l'École Saint-Cyr-l'École () is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. It used to host the training school for officers of the French army, the École spéciale militaire de Saint-Cyr (ESM), which w ...

and

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...

The merger with École nationale de l'aviation civile

Finally, on January 1, 2011, the SEFA is merged with the

in order to create the biggest

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located enti ...

an aviation school. All the SEFA activities are now providing under the only acronym

ENAC The epithelial sodium channel (ENaC), (also known as amiloride-sensitive sodium channel) is a membrane-bound ion channel that is selectively permeable to sodium ions (). It is assembled as a heterotrimer composed of three homologous subunits α ...

.Patrick GANDIL - Directeur général de l’aviation civile - Responsable du programme n° 611 : Formation aéronautique

References

Bibliography

* Ariane Gilotte, Jean-Philippe Husson and Cyril Lazerge, ''50 ans d'Énac au service de l'aviation'', Édition S.E.E.P.P, 1999

External links

Official
{{DEFAULTSORT:Service D'exploitation De La Formation Aeronautique Aviation in France Aviation schools Aviation schools in France Schools in France 1993 establishments in France Educational institutions established in 1993