Origins During the mid-1970s, French aircraft company
SOCATA commenced design work on what would become the TB family of
general aircraft; a key ambition of this new product line was to entirely replace the firm's existing and highly successful
Rallye series of aircraft. The first prototype, powered by a
Avco Lycoming O-320 engine, flew on 23 September 1977 but was lost during spin testing on 15 December that year. A second prototype was fitted with a engine. As intended, throughout 1979, production of the Rallye family began to draw down as production of the new family; In initial entry models of which were designated as the
TB-9 Tampico and the
TB-10 Tobago, with
type certification by the French
Directorate General for Civil Aviation on 26 April 1979.
Restructure and end of production During the early 2000s, a major worldwide downturn in the aviation industry resulting from the 2001
9/11 terrorist attacks in the
United States had severely impacted sales of the TB family. During mid 2004, the company announced that it was considered available options for relocating portions of the manufacturing chain for the TB family abroad, the move was attributed to the associated savings in labour costs that such a move would result in. During June 2005, it was revealed that SOCATA was in the process of evaluating between two prospective new manufacturing locations in
Canada and
Romania, having ruled out an arrangement with
EADS PZL Warszawa-Okęcie SA in
Poland after the collapse of negotiations between the two parties. During 2007, it was announced that SOCATA was in the process of organising the transfer of the final assembly line of both the TB20 and TB21 models, together with a tentative model known mostly as the
TB2X, to a new manufacturing site in
Bacau, Romania, and operated by
Aerostar as part of an industrial
offset agreement. The TB2X was the working designation for a new model in the TB series; this aircraft would most likely have been similar to the TB20 Trinidad, except for being powered by a
Diesel engine instead. As late as 2007, SOCATA were reporting that they anticipated a production rate of up to 100 aircraft per year to be attained at the new Bacau facility. At this point, while no such official announcement had been issued by the company, it was apparent that the order book for the TB family was vacant of any aircraft of the type at this time; the last three TB aircraft to have been ordered had already been delivered two years prior. During 2008, SOCATA announced that from that point onwards, the TB GT Series would be built to order only. By 2012, the TB GT series had disappeared as an order option altogether. However, the existing aircraft of the type have continued to be supported by the company; more recently, the option of
retrofitting a
Garmin-built
glass cockpit has been made available to customers. ==Design==