Harrier Engine Origins

[Jetex_Jim]

This site: AV-8B Harrier II (http://www.history.navy.mil/planes/av8.htm)
claims this - The 1957 design for the P.1127 was based on a French engine concept, adopted and improved upon by the British.

That's a new one on me. Can anybody here confirm it?

[MG23]

Quite possibly: last time I was in Britain I bought a ginormous book on the history of the Pegasus engine and while I haven't had a chance to read much yet there certainly were mentions of French VTOL designs in the first couple of chapters.

[Cpt_Pugwash]

Shamelessly lifted from John Farleys lecture (http://www.harrier.org.uk/history/history_farley.htm) ..

The vectored thrust story


The vectored thrust story started in the mid 1950s when a Frenchman, Michel Wibault, proposed a single seat fighter that he called the Gyroptere.Wibault proposed to vector the thrust of four separate centrifugal blowers driven by a single 8000 HP Bristol Orion engine (fig 5). He chose the Bristol engine because it was then the most powerful turbo-shaft engine in prospect. He was unable to interest the French authorities with this idea, but in 1956 he left a brochure with the US officer running the Paris office of the Mutual Weapons Development Programme Colonel Chapman USAF.
http://www.harrier.org.uk/history/images/Figs_5_Origins_of_thrust_vectoring.jpg
Fig 5 Origins of thrust vectoring

Chapman was working on the Orpheus engine with Bristol Aero-Engines' Technical Director Stanley Hooker, so he naturally turned to Hooker for advice on Wibault's brochure. At Chapman's request, Hooker directed a study on Wibault's idea that led to an all new Bristol engine, the Pegasus, having four rotating nozzles. By 1959 the Pegasus 1 was running on a Bristol test-bed and Hawkers were making the P1127 airframe.



and this from Wikipedia..

Background
Although unconnected, the Rolls-Royce Thrust Measuring Rig (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Thrust_Measuring_Rig) provided VTOL knowledge in 1953/4 and the Short SC.1 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_SC.1) flew in 1958.
Michel Wibault (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Michel_Wibault&action=edit&redlink=1), of France, had the idea much earlier to use vectored thrust for vertical take-off aircraft. This thrust came from four fans driven by a jet engine. Gordon Lewis (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gordon_Lewis_(engineer)&action=edit&redlink=1) planned an engine with two thrust vectors, driven by the compressor, with forward thrust from a conventional rear exhaust in his initial BE.52 design.
The Bristol Engine Company (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Aeroplane_Company) began work on the BE.53 Pegasus in 1957. The engine was designed in tandem with the prototype of the Hawker Siddeley Harrier, the Hawker P.1127 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawker_P.1127), which first flew in 1960. The next stage of development was the flown in the Kestrel, of which nine were built. It was developed from the Bristol Siddeley Orpheus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Siddeley_Orpheus), overseen by Stanley Hooker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Hooker). The low pressure stages came from the Bristol Olympus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Olympus) engine.
The engine was designed in isolation for a year, then it was helped greatly by understanding what type of aircraft it was designed for. The team received a supportive letter from Sydney Camm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Camm) in May 1957. The aircraft designer, Ralph Hooper (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ralph_Hooper&action=edit&redlink=1), suggested having the four thrust vectors, with hot gases from the rear two. Two thrust vectors did not provide enough lift. The 1957 Defence White Paper (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1957_Defence_White_Paper), which focussed on missiles, and not aircraft, also was not good news.

[tornadoken]

[1.0] Harrier Origins (http://www.faqs.org/docs/air/avav81.html)
M.Wibault, with Rockefeller-Foundation $, schemed swivelling nozzles, lift+thrust (“Gyroptère) in ’55, jointly patented Jan.’57 with Bristol and mated to Orpheus as BE.53. In June,’58 US (MWDP) agreed to meet 75% of BE.53 R&D, which bench-ran in August,1959.