Michel Wibault's strange and wonderful VTOL and rotorcraft projects

Jemiba

Jemiba

Moderator
Staff member
Top Contributor
Senior Member
Joined
11 March 2006
Messages
8,633
Reaction score
3,493
Well, the post war Wibault designs ! A little bit off topic here, as not really an "early"
project, but as it was mentioned here, I won't start another thread:
(And in the meantime it's more than 50 years ago ...)

Michel Wibault, inventor of the "Flying saucer"! :D
Isn't it hard for the british, that one of their most succesful post war combat aircraft
was in fact designed by a french ??? ;)
Some years ago, I've tried to make a series of drawings of these vectored thrust designs,
most interesting for me were the pre-Harrier studies. As I had just principle drawings,
details, as undercarriage are just a form of reasonable guesses, in the case of the two
designs with a Bristol engine based on the later Hawker designs.
Anyone who has better material ?
 

Attachments

  • Wibault_01.JPG
    Wibault_01.JPG
    17 KB · Views: 1,126
  • Wibault_02.JPG
    Wibault_02.JPG
    20 KB · Views: 1,098
  • Wibault_03.JPG
    Wibault_03.JPG
    25.8 KB · Views: 1,139
.. and the last two ones, already quite close to what Hawker called "fast helicopter" :
 

Attachments

  • Wibault_04.JPG
    Wibault_04.JPG
    27 KB · Views: 1,050
  • Wibault_05.JPG
    Wibault_05.JPG
    25.1 KB · Views: 1,037
I'd hardly say it was designed by the French; inspired by a French idea - most certainly, but so many of the developments and refinements that made it a functioning aircraft were based on Bristol and Hawker experience.
 
Ok, no problem Jemiba

I would ask you why they call this aircraft Gyroptere? that name it´s sounds better for an helicopter or maybe an autogyro.

I like very much the illustration, it reminds me the way Hergé draw the aircrafts. He was a very famous comic writer who created Tintin & Milu, a great series of comic books traslated to already a 100 languages.

Saludos

Raravia
 
I'm heavily interested in french aviation, but I really don't know, where they found
names as "Gyroptere", or in the case of the Labat designs "Aeroblic" ... ;D
The starting idea for the Wibault designs certainly was the "enclosed rotor",
simply spoken a packed up helicopter ! Perhaps this was the meaning of this name ?
Yes, "Tintin & Milu", or "Tim & Struppi" as they are called here ! I read those comics,
when I was a child and now I read them again, as my kids found them in the public
library and like them, too.
And because my illustration looks this way, I more or less quit making more, when I saw
the first 3-D drawings some years ago, made with CAD programs and concentrated again
on 3-views ... ::)
 
As far as I know, Wibault idea was to use a turboprop with four "enclosed", tilted propellers. The Hawker company changed the turboprops/ propellers for a turbojet and four tilting exhausts... the Harrier was born...
 
The shown, "UFO like" designs are in fact what they are called, an enclosed rotor,
or, perhaps better described as single stage compressors, using a four bladed , tip
driven fan, the tip jets just protruding from the ring slot at the underside. Flightcontrol
should be achieved by pumping ballast (fuel or water) between various tanks at the
perimeter ! So Wibaults later idea of using four compressors instead of a single one,
seems more realistic.
 
Although much has been written about the direct lift system of the Harrier, very little is devoted to its' originator and patent holder, Michel Wibault. Considering that the Pegasus was a magnet for IR heat seekers, I was wondering if 2 coupled turbofans driving 4 lift fans as proposed in the original Gyroptere would have been a better alternative. On another note, whilst much has been written about Dassault and other French aviation pioneers, there seem to be very little information about Wibault on the net.
 
amsci99,

Please see the magic from Jemiba about that subject;
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,395.0.html
 

Attachments

  • WIBAULT1.JPG
    WIBAULT1.JPG
    57.2 KB · Views: 257
  • wibault2.jpg
    wibault2.jpg
    39.6 KB · Views: 253
The Wibault Gyroptère and Wibault/Lewis VTOL projects, both from 1956.


Source: Osprey Air Combat: British Aerospace Harrier and Sea Harrier by Roy Braybook, Osprey 1984
 

Attachments

  • Wibault Gyroptère.jpg
    Wibault Gyroptère.jpg
    70.8 KB · Views: 216
  • Wibault-Lewis.jpg
    Wibault-Lewis.jpg
    110.6 KB · Views: 304
Any idea if the magazine, "Le Trait d'Union' covered the Gyroptere or any other projects from this period by Michel Wibault?
 
184884042X Andrew Dow, Pegasus, the Heart of the Harrier has much on Wibault...inc. a hint as to why Winthrop Rockefeller financed him.
 
Another design by Michel Wibault for a VTOL aircraft, called "Aérobus".

(from Aviation Magazine September 1960)
 

Attachments

  • Wibault Aerobus.jpg
    Wibault Aerobus.jpg
    159.3 KB · Views: 267
Topics merged. Any more pictures of Wibault-related helicopters, flying saucers, VTOL fighters or flying platforms are much welcome here!
 
A painting of the Wibault-Lewis VTOL aircraft originally posted by Jemiba on June 21, 2006 in a topic that has been split:
 

Attachments

  • Wibault-Lewis.jpg
    Wibault-Lewis.jpg
    20.1 KB · Views: 649
And from the file; Pegasus Vectored-thrust Turbofan Engine
 

Attachments

  • 1.png
    1.png
    206.4 KB · Views: 516
  • 2.png
    2.png
    157.7 KB · Views: 474
  • 3.png
    3.png
    156.6 KB · Views: 479
hesham said:
And from the file; Pegasus Vectored-thrust Turbofan Engine
Click to expand...

That quad centrifugal blower design is wonderfully insane, but makes a sick sort of sense too.
 
I have always wondered how much the Hawker Sea Hawk influenced the design of the Harrier and Pegasus. The problem of long ducting in a long fuselage was solved at the front by de Havilland who, having split the intake either side of the cockpit, cut it short at the wing root. Only Hawker dared try the same trick with the hot exhaust. Somewhat to everybody's surprise it worked well and the Sea Hawk was born. The Harrier is little more than a Sea Hawk with a bypass turbofan and thrust vectoring.

Has any other craft besides these two ever flown with a bifurcated (split) jet exhaust? And did Wibault live to collect his royalties?
 
That quad centrifugal blower design is wonderfully insane, but makes a sick sort of sense too.[/quote]

It does indeed, it's an elegantly simple solution since the blowers can be fixed in place and all you'd need is vectoring nozzles. Presumably you could get by with just three fans but the third would likely be an oddball fore or aft, the four fan solution should allow a degree of modularity. I've always wanted to build a homebuilt VTOL aircraft, hmmm..... ;)
 
Jemiba said:
Another design by Michel Wibault for a VTOL aircraft, called "Aérobus".

(from Aviation Magazine September 1960)
Click to expand...

From Ailes,a clearer view
 

Attachments

  • 1.png
    1.png
    415.2 KB · Views: 194
  • 2.png
    2.png
    313.1 KB · Views: 184
  • Les_Ailes___journal_hebdomadaire_[...]_bpt6k3209246j_8.jpeg
    Les_Ailes___journal_hebdomadaire_[...]_bpt6k3209246j_8.jpeg
    2.2 MB · Views: 173
  • Les_Ailes___journal_hebdomadaire_[...]_bpt6k3209246j_9.jpeg
    Les_Ailes___journal_hebdomadaire_[...]_bpt6k3209246j_9.jpeg
    2.2 MB · Views: 173
Who could reminds me of which project this American layout belong to? I think it is the same principle used as this thread.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_20220526_171750.jpg
    IMG_20220526_171750.jpg
    214.5 KB · Views: 66
Stargazer2006 said:
The Wibault Gyroptère and Wibault/Lewis VTOL projects, both from 1956.


Source: Osprey Air Combat: British Aerospace Harrier and Sea Harrier by Roy Braybook, Osprey 1984
Click to expand...
We can understand using two counter-rotating compressors to counter-act torque ... but why 4?
 
Manoeuverability through differential settings.
 
elmayerle said:
I'd hardly say it was designed by the French; inspired by a French idea - most certainly, but so many of the developments and refinements that made it a functioning aircraft were based on Bristol and Hawker experience.
Click to expand...
It is funny why Brits do not like to give credit where credit is due. Yes, Michel Wibault a very clever and famous aircraft designer did design the original idea that was to become the Harrier jump jet. He was a consultant on the Harrier project and was involved in all its development stages until his death and by that time the Harrier was born. He was its designer, he is also known as the father of VTOL. The Harrier was based on a Frenchman's design, a man called Michel Wibault.
 
Roger le loup said:
elmayerle said:
I'd hardly say it was designed by the French; inspired by a French idea - most certainly, but so many of the developments and refinements that made it a functioning aircraft were based on Bristol and Hawker experience.
Click to expand...
It is funny why Brits do not like to give credit where credit is due. Yes, Michel Wibault a very clever and famous aircraft designer did design the original idea that was to become the Harrier jump jet. He was a consultant on the Harrier project and was involved in all its development stages until his death and by that time the Harrier was born. He was its designer, he is also known as the father of VTOL. The Harrier was based on a Frenchman's design, a man called Michel Wibault.
Click to expand...

Very much wrong.

Wibault invented the concept of vectoring nozzles, but his engine design was impractical, shaft-driven by the gas generator of the Bristol Orion turboprop.

Gordon Lewis at Bristol combined elements of the Orpheus (core), Olympus (fan) and elements of Wibault's vectoring nozzle idea and designed the B.S.53, forerunner of the Pegasus. Initially only the fan exhaust was vectored, not the core, to 2 nozzles at the front of the engine.

Ralph Hooper was bored with his work on the P.1121 one day and went to the Hawker Technical Library where he picked up the B.S.53 brochure and drew up a small STOL liason design around it.

Bristol refined the engine design with splitting the hot core exhaust to 2 more nozzles, such that all of the engine thrust can be vectored. Hawker engineers generally ascribe the genesis of this idea to themselves, based on experience with bifurcated exhausts on the Sea Hawk.

In a long process of refinement, the P.1127 and the Pegasus engine were built, eventually leading to the Harrier. Michel Wibault died in 1963, after the P.1127 had flown but well before the Kestrel, let alone the Harrier.

The designer of the P.1127 was Ralph Hooper. His colleague John Fozard took over leadership on the Harrier.

Michel Wibault was no more than a paid consultant to the engine company. Bristol employed Wibault as a consultant and credited him on the patent. This was recompense for using his basic idea.

His ideas were helpful, but Gordon Lewis deserves most of the credit for leading the Pegasus through to a workable engine. I suggest you read Andrew Dow's book on the Pegasus engine.
 
Last edited:

Similar threads

Please donate to support the forum.

Back
Top Bottom