In the late 1930s the French aircraft industry underwent major trauma when much of it was nationalised. The outbreak of World War Two, with the concomitant need to boost production rapidly, followed by France's defeat in 1940, the pilfering of tooling by the occupying force, the Allied bombings, and finally the haphazard ordering of aircraft in the heady days following the Liberation, all these factors combined to leave the industry in almost complete chaos. In the midst of that upheaval, in November 1951, a French Government agency, the Direction Technique et Industrielle (DTI, or Technical and Industrial Directorate) of the Secretariat General a l'Aviation Commerciale et Civile (SGACC, or Civil and Commercial Aviation Department), had the foresight to initiate a design competition to obtain an airliner with advanced performance. The key requirement was to carry 55/65 passengers on sectors of up to 1,250 miles (2,000km) at a cruise speed of 335kts (620km/h). The 'design route' specified by Air France, the national carrier and expected launch customer, was Paris-Casablanca (1,168 miles [2,163km]). Seven French manufacturers submitted 40 designs, powered by turbojets, turboprops or a combination of the two. Eventually a twinjet design from the Societe Nationale de Constructions Aeronautiques du Sud-Ouest (SNCASO,rnor National Aircraft Manufacturing Corporation in the Southwest) and a tri-jet from the Societe Nationale de Constructions Aeronautiques du Sud-Est (SNCASE, or National Aircraft Manufacturing Corporation in the Southeast), both using SNECMA Atar turbojets, were selected as co-winners. However, when Britain released the more powerful and less fuel-thirsty Rolls-Royce Avon turbojet for commercial export, the SGACC decided to proceed with the SE 210 in a SNCASE revised configuration to be powered by a pair of Avons mounted externally on the rear of the fuselage. The first of two SE210 prototypes flew on May 27, 1955 at Toulouse.
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