Pierre Simon 19xx-1967

SIPA S-200 Minijet

Cover shown was carried on a test flight from Le Bourget to SIPA production site at Villacoublay in June 1955, courtesy of SIPA test pilot Pierre Simon

The SIPA S-300 was a two-seat jet trainer built at the request of French Government. It had to compete with very successful Fouga Magister, and never went into mass production as a result. SIPA (Societe Industrielle Pour L'Aeronatutique) eventually merged into Aerospatiale. The designer of the SIPA 200 and SIPA 300,Yves Gardan, left SIPA to build the fairly successful GY-80 Horizon. Pierre Simon left SIPA with Gardan, and was the test pilot for the Horizon project. He was killed on the 26th January 1967 in a crash of a Meteor mK7 during a flight test.