Since 1950, the Mérignac facility has been responsible for the final assembly and flight testing of both business and military aircraft produced in series.
Following the French government’s decision to nationalize military industries in 1936, Bloch and a few of his engineers converted an existing workshop in Talence, outside Bordeaux, into a small plant in November 1939.
They called that facility Bordeaux-Aéronautique, and serially manufactured MB175 nose fuselages there.
When Marcel Dassault returned from Buchenwald at the end of April 1945, the Talence group’s work became his stepping stone to revive his aviation business. The MB315 earned him a contract with the Air Force in 1947. His premises, however, proved much too small for the ensuing workload.
After a little vacillating, in 1949, Dassault chose to open his new facility in Mérignac. It was from that facility, Building A, called “Grande Usine” (or Large Factory), that 318 serially-produced MB315, renamed Flamant, emerged. An engineering team gradually came together over that time.
Since then, the site has expanded steadily and now comprises around twenty buildings. in step with new programs. The Ouragan, Mystère IV, Super Mystère B2, Etendard, Mirage III, Mirage IV, Super Etendard, Mirage F1, ATL, Mirage 2000 and Rafale, as well as the entire Falcon series.
As Mérignac was a non-specialized assembly facility at the start, it counted scant machine tools. That equipment came between 1955 and 1960, with the decision to manufacture prototypes and pre-production aircraft, and provide major maintenance services for Air Force planes there. All the facilities there comprised a vast workshop and large gates leading out onto the airport runways.
May 4, 1963: a delegation from Pan Am headed by Charles Lindbergh in Mérignac, a few hours before the Mystère 20’s first flight. The delegation returned to headquarters determined to persuade their chairman that their company had to distribute this type of aircraft in the U.S.. A few months later, a contract for the purchase of 40 planes and an option for a further 120 was signed. The first serially-produced aircraft flew on January 1, 1965. From then on, all Falcon aircraft, up to the Falcon 2000 in the early 1990s, were designed in Mérignac.
Responsible for the final assembly of all the company’s aircraft, the Mérignac plant has produced more than 8,400 civil and military aircraft to date. It currently assembles the Rafale and Falcon aircraft.
It also houses tertiary activities such as design, technological development, purchasing and procurement, as well as civil and military support. These activities account for more than 50% of the site’s workforce.
The facility is now the company’s only production site where it is possible to see complete aircraft, hence the name “delivery plant.”