Societatea pentru exploatări tehnice

Societatea pentru exploatări technice "Technical development society" (or SET) was a Romanian aircraft manufacturer. Established in Bucharest in 1923 by Grigore Zamfirescu as a general machinery manufacturing plant, it soon specialised in building aircraft to its founder's design, supplying the Romanian Air Force with trainers during the mid 1930s. At the peak of aircraft production, Zamfirescu changed the company's name to Fabrica de Avioanes SET. It was the second biggest Romanian pre-war aircraft manufacturer, after IAR [Gudju, Ion... p. 42] .

Most known were designs: SET 3, SET 31, SET 7, SET 41.

In the late 1930s, SET abandoned producing its own designs, and manufactured a number of IAR and foreign types under licence, including the IAR 27, IAR 39, Fleet 10, and Nardi FN.305. In 1938, the company made a deal with the Romanian government that would have seen it relocate its manufacturing facilities to Moldavia, with the government promising to purchase a minimum order of aircraft each year from the new plant. This venture was to have been called Industria nationala aeronautica ("National Aeronautical Industry"), but failed to materialise when war intervened. During the conflict, SET built Heinkel He 111s under licence.

SET continued to maintain and repair aircraft until the end of World War II, after which it continued business for a time outside the aeronautics industry.

References

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* [http://aviatia.cda.ro/15years.htm "Aviatia" magazine website]
*Ion Gudju, Gheorghe Iacobescu, Ovidiu Ionescu: "Romanian aeronautical constructions 1905-1974"