Raoul Hafner

Born in 1905, he was educated in Vienna, first at the university and then at technical college where he became interested in rotary-wing concept as a means of making aircraft land more slowly and safely.

[1][2] Scottish cotton magnate Major Jack Coates, who had financed Hafner’s work in Vienna, had the R.II Revoplane shipped to Heston Aerodrome in 1933 where it made tethered flights.

[1][3][4] In an ensuing controversy between proponents of the autogyro and the helicopter, Hafner made his views clear in a Royal Aeronautical Society lecture on 14 October 1937, when he advocated the rotary wing concept.

He then developed the Hafner Rotachute, a rotary parachute to be towed behind an aircraft, for landing agents in enemy territory.

After the war Hafner and some of his technical team joined the Bristol Aeroplane Company where he became their Chief Designer (Helicopters).

From it the Type 192 (named after the Belvedere Palace in Vienna adjacent to Hafner’s childhood home) saw service in RAF squadrons in Britain and overseas.