SOKO

Soko (Serbo-Croatian Cyrillic: Соко) was a Yugoslav aircraft manufacturer based in Mostar, SR Bosnia and Herzegovina. The company was responsible for the production of many military aircraft for the Yugoslav Air Force.^[1]

SOKO was created in 1950 by the relocation of the aircraft factory section of Ikarus company from Zemun, SR Serbia. Officially founded as "Preduzeće Soko" (Soko Corporation, soko meaning "falcon" in Serbian), soon after it was renamed "Soko Vazduhoplovna Industrija, RO Vazduhoplovstvo" (Soko Aeronautical Industry, RO Aeronautics). Its first director was Yugoslav People's Army colonel Ivan Sert. The following directors of the company were engineers Miljenko Pješčić and Tomislav Mirić. The serial manufacture of numerous types of aircraft was projected by the Aeronautical Technical Institute in Belgrade. Besides aircraft, SOKO also produced helicopters under licence. Located in the vicinity of Mostar, it mostly used the Mostar Airport for test flights.

By the 1980s, SOKO was working on the Novi Avion project, intended to develop an indigenous fourth-generation, supersonic multi-role fighter that would enabled the Yugoslav Air Force to be supplied with domestically-built modern fighters. The production was planned to begin around 1991; however, the outbreak of the Yugoslav wars and the enactment of an international arms embargo caused the project to be cancelled.^[2] During the early 1990s, the factory ceased aircraft production altogether. The facilities were partially dismantled and relocated to Serbia, where they were aligned with the Utva Aviation Industry in Pančevo which had already been working closely with SOKO in the manufacturing of Orao and Super Galeb.^[3]