Arsenal VG-70 & VG-80

The Arsenal VG-70 was a French experimental airplane developed just after the World War II.

Back in 1939 the engineer Jean Galtier had started to work on the design of a wooden fighter powered by a supercharged Hispano-Suiza 12Y-51 capable of delivering, theoretically, 1000hp of power. That project was called VG-60. That project was relaunched in 1942 around another supercharged Hispano-Suiza 12Z capable of achieving 1200hp of power, but with the liberation, the objectives of the French aeronautical sector, changed radically as the industrial priority was to adquire experience with the newly built jet engines and/or fighters. So, since September 1944 Arsenal de l'Aeronautique made some studies on how to adapt the German Jumo 004 engine on the fuselage of an Arsenal VG-60, which was never fully built.

During the summer of 1943 the engineers at the design bureau of Messerschmitt carried out some wind-tunnel tests at Chalais-Meudon in order to develop the P.1092 programme. That program never materialized, but Jean Galtier had knowledge of the results and decided to use them, so during the autumn of 1945 it was decided to build a swept-wing research prototype resulting in a 38º swept-winged monoplane resting on a retractable tricycle landing gear with a ventral air intake placed just under the cockpit. It was of mixed construction, since the fuselage was made out of metal but the wings and the vertical stabilizers were made out of wood.

It flew for the first time on 23rd June 1948 at Melun-Villaroche piloted by Modeste Vonner. It had the honour of being the second French jet airplane to fly after the SNCASO SO.6000 Triton and it achieved the speed of 760Km/h. It was expected to replace the Junkers Jumo 004 with a Rolls-Royce Derwent and it would've been called Arsenal VG-80, but the programme was abandoned in favour of the Arsenal VG-90.

Finally, as we like to run our imagination wild, we thought that it would've been interesting if the Frenchs, would've armed the aircraft to use it as a rocket fighter.

Sources:
1. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenal_VG_70 (translated)
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenal_VG_70