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Top to bottom: BTZ Hanneton IV design for ducted fan aircraft with contra-rotating propellers driven by two gas turbines in nacelles. via Bill Rose BTZ Hanneton III design for ducted fan utility aircraft with contra-rotating propellers driven by gas turbines below cabin. via Bill Rose BTZ Hanneton 20C design study for twin-fuselage single ducted fan aircraft with contra-rotating propellers driven by two gas turbines in nacelles. via Bill Rose Fans and Ducts WT nique Zborowski for his consultancy. As part of the ongoing arrangement it was agreed that SNECMA would purchase the patents for those designs provided to them and the trans- fer was formalised in 1951. The SNECMA VTOL fighter project started in 1952 with tests to determine if it was possi- ble to control the direction of flight by blow- ing compressed air into an engine’s jet stream. A modified de Havilland Vampire jet was used for these experiments and by the following year this arrangement had been fully integrated with a flight control system. In 1954 the next stage of testing began to estab- lish remote control use of a joystick, which operated an Ecrevisse pulsejet mounted in a vertical test rig. This phase of intense research and development continued for another two years and a team of 150 person- nel worked on the project, managed by Ger- man design engineer Gerhard Eggers. This work led to construction of a proof-of- concept prototype known as ATAR CP.400-P1 (also sometimes called the ATAR Volant -Fly- ing ATAR). This was little more than an enclosed turbojet and fuel tank supported by four legs (fitted with castor wheels) extend- ing from the base. Suspended from a large gantry, this strange-looking contraption used a 6,400 Ib (28.4kN) thrust ATAR D jet engine and made the first of 250 flights under remote control during October 1955. Atelier Technique Aeronautique Ricken- bach (ATAR) engines had evolved directly from BMW’s wartime research. In May 1945 the ATAR Company was established at Rick- enbach in Switzerland by BMW’s chief designer Dr Hermann Oestrich, who had fled across the border with other BMW scientists and engineers in the last days of World War Two. ATAR jet engines built by SNECMA were to become a key part of the post-war French military aircraft industry. During 1955 West Germany joined NATO and was now working hard to rebuild its mil- itary capability. With the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter on order as the Luftwaffe’s next 143