Belfast Aircraft Stress Engineers (BASE) are previous tenants of Inspire Business Park who went on to become a widely successful design-led aircraft engineering company. BASE began operating in October 2000 with just three employees in a small office space within the business park. BASE specialised in FEA, fatigue and damage tolerance, vibration and impact analysis. The company confirmed that they chose to operate at Inspire due to its close links to Belfast City Airport which would favourably place them for overseas clients coming from mainland England and Europe; “most of our clients were based in Europe, so having somewhere that was easily accessible was important to us”. 

Initially, the company was unsure of its offering, being predominantly centred around aerospace with Bombardier on its doorstep. The flexible lease terms at Inspire is what drove the company towards the business park initially as it permitted the company freedom to grow or cease trading in the future. “We had never traded before so we needed somewhere that would offer us flexibility”. 

In 2018, after acquiring a reputable client base – including big names in industry such as Rolls Royce and BAE systems - BASE sold their operations, staff, software and large projects to Causeway Aero Ltd. The acquisition came as a decision to provide a wider offering to its client list as they were able to merge the design strengths of BASE with a manufacture-based/product-led company in the industry. This allowed the company to develop into a full-scale operation, which led to the creation of numerous job roles and potential to expand towards a wider audience.