Tiltjet

A typical arrangement has the engines mounted on the wingtips, in which the entire propulsion system is rotated from axial to dorsal in order to achieve the transition from hover or vertical flight to horizontal.

[3] During 1950s and 1960s, multiple programmes in Britain, France, and the United States were initiated; likewise, aviation companies inside West Germany were keen not to be left out of this emerging technology.

Shortly after 1957, the year in which the post-Second World War ban upon West Germany operating and developing combat aircraft was lifted, German aviation firms Dornier Flugzeugwerke, Heinkel, and Messerschmitt, having also been allowed to resume their own activities that same year, received an official request from the German Federal Government that urged them to perform investigative work on the topic of VTOL aircraft and to produce concept designs.

Intended purely for experimental purposes, this one-of-a-kind aircraft made extensive use of existing general aviation components throughout to reduce its cost.

[11] Akin to the fortunes of the tiltjets, various other projects of the era to develop supersonic-capable VTOL fighter aircraft, including the Mirage IIIV and the Hawker Siddeley P.1154 (a supersonic parallel to what would become the Hawker Siddeley Harrier, a subsonic VTOL combat aircraft that reached operational service), ultimately met similar fates.