Air and space flight in Belgium

The turn of the century was a turbulent time for both air and space flight, neither of which escaped the effects of world events. CAWET decided to study the situation of these two sectors in the Belgian context.

A historical introduction reports Belgian initiatives in air and space flight. In a following chapter the strategic importance of air and space travel are discussed with particular reference to employment and turnover. For air travel, after a sketch of the global situation, the Belgian situation is discussed and the most important bottlenecks are mentioned. A similar analysis is given for space flight. Both sectors are highly researchdependent, whence the necessity for an examination of efforts in the country and particularly those of our own regional institutions.

A complete inventory is given of all Belgian institutions involved in training the highly qualified technical staff needed in these sectors. Attention is also paid to security and defence matters related to these sectors. Finally, the economic factors involved in policy-defining decisions are discussed; these include federal and regional mechanisms, economic compensation related to military procurement and the just return from ESA and European Framework programmes.