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Opposite page: Centrifugal Blower Gearboxes Bristol Orion Top left: One of Michel Wibault’s proposals for a VTOL delta-winged military aircraft with complex ducted fan propulsion system using contra- rotating blowers driven by two gas turbines. via Bill Rose Top right: A complicated design for a VTOL aircraft, produced by Michel Wibault in 1954 using vertically positioned turboprop engines to drive large blower units in the wings. via Bill Rose Bottom left: Wibault VTOL fighter concept, using four centrifugal blowers coupled to two gas turbines for lift and forward flight. via Bill Rose Bottom right: The fighter aircraft concept by Michel Wibault uses two centrally located blowers shaft- coupled to two gas turbines for lift and forward flight. By the mid-1950s Wibault had changed direction having produced a new aircraft design with a more conventional shape. It was still referred to as the Gyropter but utilised a new type of propulsive blower sys- tem. Wibault envisaged a single-seat single- engine VTOL strike fighter that could be used to deliver tactical nuclear weapons from an improvised dispersal site. The propulsion sys- tem comprised four blowers located around the aircraft's centre of gravity powered by a Bristol BE.25 Orion turboshaft engine produc- ing 8,000hp (5,970kW). Each of these blowers would rotate to produce downward or hori- Vtheent the application was rejected. He then approached the NATO Mutual Weapons Development Program (MWDP) Office in Paris, who forwarded his design studies to Theodore von Karman for review. The docu- ments were finally passed to Stanley Hooker at Bristol Aero Engines in England and he was sufficiently impressed by Wibault’s work to assign a small development team, compris- ing Gordon Lewis, Pierre Young, and Neville Quinn, to study the ideas in detail. Realising the basic concept could be substantially improved by directly channelling the engine’s exhaust via swivelling ducts, the team set about building an engine called the BE.48. The engine design based on an Orion soon evolved into the BE.52 and then this was This page: Right: Michel Wibault’s 1956 design for a propulsive system to provide his Gyroptére aircraft design with a VTOL capability. Driven by a British built Orion turboshaft engine, the four snail- shaped blowers would rotate to provide lift and level flight. This design would eventually lead to the very sophisticated Pegasus engine used in the Harrier. via Bill Rose Below: AV-8B Harrier II. The advanced propulsive technology used in this aircraft can be traced directly back to research carried out by French designer Michel Wibault. US Marine Corps zontal thrust. In 1955 Wibault went to the French gov- ernment to ask for development funding but 101 Postwar Discplane Development