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Arsenal VG-70

1948 COLD WAR X-PLANE

History of Arsenal's VG-70

The French aviation industry suffered the most in the German invasion of May 1940. As such, its prestige status is higher than that of the post-war period when nations struggled to restore their military capabilities. The Arsenal VG-70 was one of the milestones in the seriousness and development of France's first front-line jet fighter.

The aircraft was used only as a technology demonstration during its brief airborne service, but still influenced other future designs.

Arsenal de l'Aeronautique was a French state-owned aircraft manufacturer founded in 1934 and managed a healthy inventory of prototype aircraft during the period leading up to World War II (1939-1945), while continuing work until the mid-1950s before it Acquired as part of Nord Aviation. The "VG" family of propeller fighters was a long-running program largely interrupted by the German invasion, although some of the group's programs were allowed to continue under French Vichy rule - none of which were significantly developed into a tangible form.

After the war ended in 1945, French engineers were once again feverishly designing and developing entirely new aircraft productsespecially the existence of turbojet engines, the future of the French Air Force.

The VG-70 marks a technological step forward for the company to explore high-speed jet-powered flight using swept-wing main aircraft. To accomplish this task, engineers designed the most compact shape possible around a German Junkers Jumo 004 (Type 004-B2) turbojet with 1,980 pounds of thrust, and conducted a swept-wing study using captured German data.

The resulting aircraft was a sleek metal-fuselage aircraft with high wings and a low floor profile in a traditional tail configuration, to which the VG-70 was codenamed. Performance specs are promising, with estimated speeds in excess of 500 mph.

Metal is used throughout the fuselage, but wood is the main material for the tail. Main-wing aircraft are "wet" because they hold most of the fuel a thirsty turbojet needs.

The engines are drawn in through air intakes formed along the ventral side of the fuselage - located under and aft of the cockpit floor. The cockpit itself is located at the front of the fuselage, with good visibility through the light-frame canopy.

The three-wheeled landing gear is used with the single-wheeled front strut at the very forward end of the aircraft and retracts aft. The main legs are located under the wings and retract inward towards the centerline of the fuselage.

The VG-70 was on public display at the 1946 Paris Air Show, and formal ground tests began the following year, with its first recorded flight on June 23, 1948. Despite the low power produced by the Jumo engines, the aircraft performed admirably and was the second jet of French origin.

Despite its promise, the VG-70 had an extremely short flying careeronly five flights in allas the program officially ended in 1949. Attention turned to an entirely new jet-powered design that took advantage of lessons learned in the development of the VG-70, which became an aerodynamic and mechanical dead end - the airframe was barely modified to accommodate the newer, larger Flexibility to provide higher output power engine units.

The related design VG-71 was intended to carry the 3,500 lb thrust Rolls-Royce "Derwent" turbojet, but this required a complete redesign of the VG-70 airframe - a project not worth the time and financial commitment . The VG-80 was originally intended to carry the Rolls-Royce "Nene", but that move also failed - leading to the development of the VG-90, a jet-powered carrier-based interceptor.

The VG-70 had a top speed of 497 mph during testing. It has a maximum take-off weight (MTOW) of 7,275 pounds, a length of 9.7 meters, a wingspan of 8.5 meters and a height of 2.3 meters.

Other performance figures listed on this page are estimates.