Aeronautics, Space And Defense

The combined capabilities of the Aquitaine and the Midi-Pyrénées regions has resulted in south-west France offering the most powerful world wide competitiveness cluster of aerospace activity in Europe - The Aerospace Valley .This cluster with 94, 000 employees is Europe’s largest employer, for aerospace and related activity.

Everything that flies in the sky or space carries the Aquitaine trade mark.

With 38,000 employees, 570 organisations and 228 sub-contractors, Aquitaine is recognised as an international leader in numerous fields :

Leading centre in Europe for

• flight tests and test centres
• the design, characterisation and machining of composite materials,
• aerospace and strategic propulsion
• Radars and airborne systems
• Military Aircrafts

World Leading manufacturer in :

• helicopter engines,
• landing gear,
• top-of-the-range corporate jets
• Aircraft fleets

European Leader for piloted atmospheric re-entry technologies

International leaders

The region is home to the largest companies in Europe and in the world in the sector, with all civil and military activities represented. With names such as Airbus, Ariane Espace, Boeing, Bombardier, Nasa, Cessna, Eurocopter there can be no greater testament to the strength of this exciting industry in the region.

• Dassault Aviation, the only non American of the 5 world wide leaders of corporate jets, assemble all its Falcon range in Aquitaine.
• The Thalès group are leaning towards the future defense needs in electronics.
• Thermo-structural materials were born locally in Snecma Propulsion Solide (Safran group).

The presence of large industrial defense groups is due in part to the existence of a number of test centres (CAEPE, CELM, CEV), the CEA, SNPE Matériaux Energétiques and ROXEL…

Leader & New Talents

Specialised training and dedicated R and D

250 engineering students are trained each year by the Bordeaux 1 Sciences et Technologies University or the major engineering schools in Bordeaux.