Michel Wibault

Michel Henri Marie Joseph Wibault (born 5 June 1897, died 23 January 1963) was a French aircraft designer.

In March 1917 Wibault presented a fighter design to Lieutenant-Colonel Émile Dorand, Director of the Technical Section of Military Aeronautics (STAé) in Paris, and with financial assistance from his maternal uncle, made in December 1917, built a model which was successfully tested in the Eiffel aerodynamic laboratory.

As a pioneer of metal construction for which he held patents,[3] he closely followed the design methods of Hugo Junkers and Caudius Dornier.

[1] In 1937 the French Air Ministry awarded Wibault a contract for a large four-engined double-deck airliner carrying up to 72 passengers.

An early version, carrying 25 passengers in some luxury, including a lower deck bar and restaurant was named the Air-Wibault 1.00.

[9] Moving to America, Wibault joined Republic Aviation where he worked with the company’s major driving force and chief designer Alexander Kartveli.

Kartveli, a Soviet émigré, had trained at an aviation school in Paris and then worked for Louis Bleriot, and for the Wibault company,[10][2] leaving for America in 1927, and was a strong proponent of metal construction methods.

He became increasingly interested in vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft, with projects ranging from interceptors to large airliners, most of which he classified as a “Gyropter” (French – “Gyroptère”).

[1] In 1954, one of his projects was for a vertical take-off and landing ground-attack Gyropter using the most powerful turboshaft engine then available, a Bristol Orion, driving four centrifugal compressors mounted on the sides of the airframe around the centre of gravity.

Unable to interest the French government or industry in the idea, in 1955 Wibault submitted it to the NATO Mutual Weapons Development Programme and was subsequently introduced to Stanley Hooker who was then technical director of Bristol Engines.