Société des Avions Marcel Bloch

By the end of the 1920s, Marcel Bloch already had some experience in organizing aircraft manufacturing enterprises. The Éclair and SEA companies created by him (together with Henri Poté ) contributed to the development of French aviation.

Although both of these businesses closed almost immediately after the end of World War I , Pote immediately began his own project, Aéroplanes Henry Potez . The block, however, manages to return to design activity only in 1929; a year later, relying on top-level communications, he received an order from the Ministry of Aviation to develop three-engine mail planes intended for the French colonies .

To attract specialists to work on the order, Blok places advertisements in the press, to which his future associates Benno-Claude Vallière and Henri Deplan respond . Subsequently, other engineers joined them, including Jean Cabriere, Lucien Cervanti and Henry's brother, Paul Deplan.

The MB.60 prototype was built by the hangar premises provided by Louis Bleriot . Neither he nor the next MB.70 project succeeded in succeeding in the next model, the sanitary MB.80. This aircraft, developed on the initiative of Bloch himself, was produced at a factory for this purpose in Boulogne Billancourt with a series of 20 cars. The colonial transporter MB.120 was also produced in a small series.

In 1932, the company moved to Courbevoie , its next achievement was the development of the MB.200 bomber, which was ordered by the French Air Force in the amount of 208 vehicles. In addition, Czechoslovakia acquired a license for its release, in which it was issued at the enterprises of Aero and Avia (a total of 124 copies).

Another bomber model, MB.210 , appears in 1934: a total of 298 pieces were produced, including 24 for export to Romania . On the wave of success, the company is building new plants in Chateauroux-Deol , Velisy-Vilacouble and Bordeaux .

In 1935, Bloch and Henri Pote jointly bought the Bordeaux company SAB (later renamed SASO - Société Aéronautique du Sud-Ouest ). To preserve his financial independence, Marcel Bloch founds Société Anonyme des Avions Marcel Bloch (SAAMB) with a head office in Courbevoie.

Already in 1936, the French aircraft industry was nationalized. Flea's enterprises were officially confiscated and, along with factories of other companies, entered the SNCASO state association, and he himself agreed to become its manager ^{[1] [1]} . In compensation for his factories, he received 27 million francs .

Independent design activity of SAAMB was also impossible, since its design bureau in February 1937, by decision of the Ministry of Aviation, was included in the same association.

In connection with the growing military threat from Germany , the French government in 1937 adopted a program to modernize the Air Force. The MB.150 fighter and MB.174 bomber created by Bloch are mass-produced at SNCASO plants until France's surrender in 1940.

In 1938, Marcel Bloch tried to engage in entrepreneurial activity in the field of aircraft industry, which was not affected by state regulation. He acquired land in Saint-Cloud ^[2] and Thiers ^[3] , where he began the construction of a new plant for the production of aircraft engines and propellers . In September 1939, the company additionally acquired industrial buildings in Talence , a suburb of Bordeaux , where it established the Bordeaux-Aéronautique factory.

After the defeat of France in 1940, Marcel Bloch was subjected to defamation and in October of that year was interned by the Vichy government. His projects, especially MB.175, interested the Luftwaffe , but Bloch refused to cooperate with the Germans.

During the occupation, part of the former SNCASO enterprises was used by the German company Junkers ^[4] , and the Fw 189 reconnaissance aircraft was produced at the factory in Bordeaux-Merignac.

Many employees of the Flea company managed to escape from the country and reach Spain, Algeria , the UK, where some of them joined parts of Free France . Marcel Bloch himself in 1944, due to his Jewish origin, was sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp. He returned to France after being released from the camp (April 11, 1945).

Bloch decided on a new start and, soon after an extraordinary meeting of his company’s board held on November 10, 1945, on December 6 reorganized the enterprises in Saint-Cloud, Boulogne-Billancourt and Talence into subsidiaries of the parent company Société Anonyme des Avions Marcel Bloch . In the following years, she worked on subcontracting for SNCASO , SNCASE and Latécoère .

In 1946, Bloch decided to change his surname to Dassault in honor of his brother General Darius Paul Bloch , who used it as a pseudonym in the French Resistance .

On January 20, 1947 his company was also renamed and became known as Société des Avions Marcel Dassault , then, after several reorganizations - Dassault Aviation , and under this name still exists.

civilian model names in italics

• MB.60 / 61 (1930), a three-engine postal plane, built 2;
• Bloch MB.70
• MB.80 / 81 (1932) ambulance aircraft, 20;
• MB.90 / 91/92/93/100 (1932), lightweight all-metal aircraft, 3 copies
• MB.120 (1932) three-engine postal and passenger aircraft, 11;
• MB.130 (1934) prototype reconnaissance bomber, 1;
• MB.200 /.../203 (1933) ^[5] medium bomber, 208 and 124 of the Czechoslovak;
• MB.210 / 211/212/218 (1934-37) medium bomber, 274;
• MB.220 / 221 (1935) ^[6] twin-engine passenger aircraft, 17;
• MB.131 /...136, 1935-37 ^[7] reconnaissance bomber, 143 ;, 143;
• MB.300 (1935) three-engine airliner, 1;
• MB.150 /151...157 (1937) fighter, 663;
• MB.170 / 171...178 (1938) light bomber, 163;
• MB.462 (c. 1938)
• MB.500 (1938) prototype multipurpose aircraft, 1;
• MB.690 (c. 1938)
• MB.730 (c. 1938)
• MB.480 (1939) twin-engine float multipurpose aircraft, 2;
• MB.160 / 161 (1939) four-engine airliner, prototype of the post-war SE.161 Languedoc 1;
• MB.162 (1940) four-engine bomber, 1;
• MB.700 (1941) light fighter program STAé -23, 1;
• MB. 800 (1947) 2;
• MB 900 / SO.90
• MB 1010 fighter project (1939), also SO10, was not built;
• MB 1020 / SO20, project of a 20-seater liner designed by Andre Erbemon , subsequently abandoned;
• MB 1030 / SO30
• MB 1040 double version MB.1010, also SO40, was not built;

• Endre Gömöri. Super-rich. M. International relations. 1987.264 s.
• Varios (1983). Enciclopedia Ilustrada de la Aviación. Volumen 3. Barcelona: Editorial Delta. pp. 716-720, 734-735. ISBN 84-85822-29-3 .
• Genov, Maxim. 110 years old from birth on Marcel Daso. Part I. sp. KRILE Retrosalon. 36/2002. pg. 32-35.

• Bloch technology on Aviafrance (fr.)
• Bloch Aircraft at Sky Corner
• L'aventure Dassault (Neopr.) .
• The topic of company aircraft on the forum secretprojects.co.uk (eng.)
• Unternehmensgeschichte auf der Webseite von Dassault Aviation (German)