Following a series of mergers and takeovers, the principal successor businesses to the company now trade as WFEL ( formerly Williams Fairey Engineering Limited ) manufacturing portable bridges, Spectris plc and as FBM Babcock Marine Ltd

It is proposed to change the company's name to the Fairey Co. Ltd., and to concentrate general engineering activities in the Stockport Aviation Co. Ltd., whose name would become Fairey Engineering Ltd.

* Fairey Engineering Ltd, Stockport, General and nuclear engineering ;

However, these businesses were disposed of in 1986 as part of Pearson wishing to concentrate on core activities ; acquired by Williams Holdings they became Williams Fairey Engineering Ltd.

These were captured by some of the most prestigious names in the UK aerial survey industry, including Fairey, Huntings, Simmons, Clyde and BKS Engineering Surveys – all part of Blom Aerofilms ’ s UK heritage.

After the end of aircraft production the Heaton Chapel works became Fairey Engineering Ltd and began production of medium and heavy engineering including portable bridges for military and emergency services use, notably the Medium Girder Bridge.

Fairey Engineering Ltd also made Nuclear Reactor cores and fuelling machines for Dungeness B and Trawsfynydd.

The company became Williams Fairey Engineering in 1986, and was then taken over by Kidde part of the American giant United Technologies Corporation.

Production was therefore invested in Fairey Engineering Ltd but by 1962 this had been transformed into a 50 / 50 joint venture with the British Aircraft Corporation ( Holdings ) Ltd known as BAC ( AT ) LTD, with offices at 100 Pall Mall, London SWI.

In 1960, Fairey announced an agreement between Fairey Engineering Ltd. and the Del Mar Engineering Laboratories, Los Angeles, California, to distribute a range of subsonic and supersonic towed target systems ( RADOP ) for air-to-air and surface-to-air guided weapon training in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, the Commonwealth and the UK.

The Weapon Division of Fairey Engineering Ltd was responsible in the UK for the Jindivik Mk 2B Pilotless target aircraft.

The £ 89 million contract was awarded in August 1965 to Atomic Power Construction (' APC '), a consortium backed by Crompton Parkinson, Fairey Engineering, International Combustion and Richardsons Westgarth.

Swingfire was developed by Fairey Engineering Ltd and the British Aircraft Corporation.

In 1986 Fairey Engineering was taken over by Williams Holdings and became Williams Fairey Engineering Ltd.

The Plover had a good performance but only six were built for service in 1923 ; the Royal Navy preferring the Fairey Flycatcher despite its lower speed.

The Fairey Jet Gyrodyne and Fairey Rotodyne had true tipjets instead of the rockets.

By this point, Cunningham's forces, which had been attempting to join up with Pridham-Wippell's, had launched a sortie of Fairey Albacore torpedo bombers from HMS Formidable at 09: 38.

When the invasion did come on 10 May 1940, the Germans were not only in possession of more aircraft and weapons than the western Allies ( among them were approximately 400 aircraft from the RAF, including Hawker Hurricane fighters and outclassed Fairey Battle bombers ), but many of them were veterans of the war in Spain and so had brought their comrades up to speed as to how to conduct the air element of the war by " preparing the ground " for the Panzer divisions of the German Army.

Notable for the design of a number of important military aircraft, including the Fairey III family, the Swordfish, Firefly, and Gannet, it had a strong presence in the supply of naval aircraft, and also built bombers for the RAF.

Westland Aircraft and the Fairey Company announced that they had reached agreement for the sale by Fairey to Westland of the issued share capital of Fairey Aviation, which operated all Fairey's UK aviation interests.

The sale did not include Fairey Air Surveys or the works at Heston which was home to the weapon division, which had a contract for research into advanced anti-tank missile systems.

Fairey aircraft had impressed the Belgian authorities and a subsidiary, Avions Fairey was established to produce Fairey aircraft in Belgium

Drawing on the parent company's expertise in the design of hydraulic equipment led to local manufacturer of the Fairey Microfilter, which had applications in industries beyond aviation.

The Fairey factory at Heaton Chapel, Stockport can trace its roots back to when Crossley Bros. Ltd having had by the end of 1916 supplied large numbers of tenders and aero engines to the Royal Flying Corps acquired premises at High Lane, Heaton Chapel to expand production.

Fairey's interest in missile production had been kept separate from the Fairey Aviation Co Ltd and its subsequent absorption into the Westland Group in 1960.

For some sixty years the band was associated with the company and its successors, although the Fairey Band has now had to turn to external sources for financial backing.

Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers, 12 in total, flew into the Fleet Air Arm ( FAA ) base at Hal Far ; the 767 Training Squadron, who had escaped southern France following the French capitulation.

Ten Italian SM 79s had drawn off the carrier's Fairey Fulmar fighters while the escorting cruiser HMS Bonaventure sank the Italian torpedo boat Vega.

Until the return of the Luftwaffe over Malta, the RAF defenders had claimed 199 aircraft shot down from June 1940 — December 1941, while losses were at least 90 Hurricanes, three Fairey Fulmars, one Gladiator in air combat ; ten more Hurricanes and one Gladiator destroyed in accidents, and many more destroyed on the ground.

By the time they reached Halifax the Emerald had lost her ships boats, rafts and various depth charges, wires, shackles and other valuable equipment, not to mention her spotter plane, a Fairey Seafox.

On 12 February 1942 off the coast of England, 32 year old Lieutenant Commander Esmonde led a detachment of six Fairey Swordfish in an attack on the two German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen ( which had already managed to get from Brest without hindrance ).

A batch of the Fairey Hamble Baby were built and then another enquiry came in for a shipboard reconnaissance plane.

Conceived as a replacement for the Westland Wapiti and Fairey Gordon it initially called for day and night bombing capabilities, reconnaissance, torpedo and dive-bombing roles.

Nimrod aside, many naval fighters were named for birds-such as the Fairey Flycatcher, Fairey Fulmar, Blackburn Skua and Grumman Martlet ( the martlet being a heraldic bird ).

In 1929, Fairey Aviation bought of land just southeast of Heathrow hamlet, to establish an airfield for flight testing ; later purchases gradually enlarged this airfield to about.

* 1933: A local trade directory lists for Heathrow these: Mrs. Waddell ( Cain's Farm house ); < u > farmers or market gardeners </ u >: Harry Curtis ( Heathrow Farm ), George Dance ( a small house on Heathrow Road nearly opposite the Plough and Harrow pub ), William Howell ( Bathurst ), Frederick Philp ( Heathrow Hall ), Sidney Whittington ( Perry Oaks ), David and John Wild ( Croft House ); < u > other </ u >: Heathrow Sand & Gravel Co ( Colnbrook ) Ltd., Edgar Charles Basham ( The gazette misprinted his surname as Sasham ) ( publican at the Plough and Harrow pub ), Fairey Aviation.

Charles Richard Fairey was seconded there for a short time, before setting up his own company, Fairey Aviation, which relocated across the railway.

* Fairey Delta 2 ( 1954 )-1st aircraft to break 1, 000 mph, rebuilt as BAC 211 for high speed delta research for Concorde

Woolverstone is home to the Royal Harwich Yacht Club that was for many years host to the Swordfish 15-foot racing dinghy built by Fairey Marine, in addition to its 12-foot Firefly, a derivative of the National 12-foot dinghy, both designed by the great sailor Uffa Fox.

This naturally led to the use of light bombers as the preferred platform for airborne radars, and in May 1939 the first experimental fit took place, on a Fairey Battle.

To compensate for this, many dive bombers are designed to be trimmed out, either through the use of special dive flaps ( such as Fairey Youngman flaps ) or through changes in tailplane trim that must be readjusted when the dive is completed.

They only produced hybrid aircraft: the Blackburn Skua, a dive bomber / fighter that was used for a short time and in small numbers, and the Fairey Barracuda, a dive bomber / torpedo bomber.

Romanian aircraft used to pass through Avions Fairey in Belgium to the UK for certification.

No. 1 Group, with its squadrons of Fairey Battles, left for France to form the Advanced Air Striking Force.

The station was used mainly for training, and the first squadrons were equipped with Vickers Wellesley aircraft, but soon converted to Fairey Battles.

The first aircraft designed and built by the Fairey Aviation specifically for use on an aircraft carrier was the Fairey Campania a patrol seaplane that first flew in February 1917.

C. R. Fairey and the Fairey Aviation Co., Ltd., was awarded £ 4, 000 for work on the Hamble Baby seaplane.