FLAG History in relation to the build-up of a true European Aerospace Industry.

FLAG is a non-profit organisation established in December 1980 as one of the Technology (Development Groups), under the auspices of the Flemish Employers Organisation (VEV), and within the framework of the "Third Industrial Revolution in Flanders" actions (DIRV Program) launched by the first Chairman of the First Regional Flemish Government, Gaston Geens.

FLAG was tasked to bring  Flanders back into the Aerospace Industry after having been part of the early development of aviation in the period before World War II, as manufacturer of indigenous airplanes and even of the first helicopter prototype.

After World War II, the Belgian and European aerospace industries were in ruins, and many an old car and aircraft manufacturer disappeared forever with it.

The US Marshall Plan filled up the economic vacuum in Europe , brought back on its feet the traditional industries, and did later lead to the creation of the European Community for Coal and Steel (EGKS), the early predecessor of the European Union (EU).

The European Aerospace sector took longer to get back on its feet. With the advent of NATO and the Warsaw Pact, the beginning of the Cold War and the Korean War, many Western European armies and air forces were equipping mostly with loaned military systems, fighters and even transport aircraft from the USA under the MDAP Program (Mutual Defence Assistance Program). This US gesture did retard even more the resurrection of a true indigenous European aerospace industry. Moreover, the European nations tried for years to redevelop their national aerospace industries on a national basis, with a whole series of tremendous failures and setbacks, and only few real successes except that it kept the brains and design offices working. France and the United Kingdom then decided to make a quantum leap in developing the first supersonic airliner Concorde, a tremendous technological success, but commercially not viable.

The same phenomena happened in the space industries, where European nations tried first individually to re-establish itself in space, but failed.

After all these individual trials and failures to develop a true European Aerospace Industry, it was finally by pulling all the European resources together and with the advent of Airbus, ESA and the Ariane space program, that a more and more economically uniting Europe regained some of the lost terrain of WWII. The success of Airbus lead to a breakthrough in the late nineties, and finally the year 2003, the first year in which Airbus and Europe sold more airliners than Boeing and the USA .

In the field of military aircraft, some European nations tried very hard individually to catch up with the USA , but again failed. They decided too late to unite also all European resources in the military field to built a generation of fighter aircraft, military airlifters, tankers, Awacs, surveillance planes and UAV's, comparable to the latest USA generations. Finally, the decision to built the first really European military airlifter, from FLA (Future Large Aircraft) to the Airbus Military A-400M, has the potential of breaking the USA military airlifter monopoly for the first time after WWII, and to stop the legendary C-130 from going on forever. Also the European tanker development of the highly succesful civilian airliner A-330 into the A-330 MRTT was crowned with success when it won the USAF tanker competition in 2008. However, combat fighters, AWACS and UAV's are domains in which Europe fails yet to be competitive with US and Israeli products.

The smaller nations, such as Belgium after WWII, were forced to recover slowly by assembling, build-to-print, co-produce, licence-produce and maintain, repair and overhaul military aircraft ,used by the air force, to slowly build-up capacities that made them able to associate with Airbus and ESA programs later.

As long as Belgium was a Unitarian State , there was a non-written national industrial policy after World War II to establish the aerospace and defence industries in the South ( Wallonia ) and Brussels area, while the Northern part of Belgium , Flanders was to develop shipbuilding and the telecommunications sector. This kind of "communist style state directed plan economy" went overboard when the Belgian nation started to become a Federal State in the early 80ties, and the more and more autonomous Regions started to develop their own economic policies.

This is where FLAG was called in to re-establish Flanders in the field of aerospace through two major strategic actions: the use of foreign offset obligations to create or expand our own and new technology niches, products and services in the aerospace field, and the push for innovation studies and projects in the aerospace domain to ready ourselves for the role of supplying to any major international aircraft building programmes. The ultimate aim and FLAG philosophy was to become a supplier for "a hundred items to each and every aircraft" built in the world, instead of even trying to re-establish ourselves via the assembly or co-production of military aircraft or systems into the building of complete aircraft. This strategic option now sounds obvious, it was not in 1980! It also explains why the aerospace industry in the North of Belgium is different and complementary to the more traditional aerospace industry in the South of Belgium.

The results are rather spectacular. Companies that did start up with FLAG in the early years, like ASCO and BARCO, became world champions and world leaders in their selected technology and product niches about twenty years later. Through highly innovative projects, FLAG is breeding a whole new generation of AeroSME's , which we hope will be joining the early world leaders in an even shorter time period. Whereas only 2 FLAG members supplied to earlier Airbus aircraft, to-day 11 FLAG members are working on the A-380 development and production, and 4 on the B-787, while others are to follow. Our suppliers deliver to any major aircraft system in the world now, from the steel cord in the aircraft wheel tires, over the most essential hard metal critical subsystems and structural components, to complete avionics suites, software systems and contributing with unique technologies. Some of our smaller AeroSME's are again building general aviation and VLA aircraft and engines after an absence of more then 50 years in this field! The Flemish Government actively supports our aerospace sector through the IWT and FIT governmental agencies. FLAG also became the innovation front office, on behalf of the IWT and Flemish Government, for the aeronautical industry. More then 95% of the production of our member companies is for export!

FLAG is also the partner of the Federal and Regional Governments and their agencies.

The sky is not the limit anymore!