The rollout of the first of three VFW VAK 191B prototypes at Bremen in August 1970.

The Rolls-Royce RB.162 was a turbojet engine developed as a joint project by the British, French and West Germans specifically as a lightweight direct-lift powerplant for VTOL aircraft. To minimise weight and keep production costs down, the engine incorporated fibreglass compressor casings and plastic compressor blades.

A model of the Focke-Wulf Fw 1262 at the Hanover Air Show in the spring of 1964. The West Germans had started work on the project in late 1961, before NBMR-3 was issued; and, although it bore a passing resemblance to the P.1127, the Germans preferred the incorporation of a single Rolls-Royce RB.153 for main propulsion and two RB.162s for lift.

The concept of a lift engine forward and aft of the main propulsion engine in the Fw 1262 - redesignated VAK 191B in August 1962 - robbed the West German design of the remarkable compactness of its single-engined British competitor, the P.1127, giving the German design a much longer fuselage and a somewhat unwieldy appearance.

The third prototype Hawker P.1127, XP972, up from Farnborough during the 1962 SBAC show. The British approach to the challenge of a V/STOL strike fighter with a meaningful radius of action was to keep weight and complexity to a minimum by using a radically different form of propulsion - vectored thrust - in which a single engine with rotatable nozzles provided both direct lift and forward propulsion, in the form of the Bristol Siddeley BE.53 engine.

Испытания Р.1127. 12 сентября 1961г.: первые два прототипа Hawker Р.1127, пилотируемые Э. У. Бедфордом и Хью Мереветтером, совершили первые полные переходы из вертикального в горизонтальный полет и наоборот, хотя первые пробные переходы выполнялись четырьмя днями ранее.
More than 60 years after the first P.1127 prototype, XP831, made its maiden flight, the concept of the "jump-jet” is so ingrained in the consciousness of the military and public alike that it is now almost impossible to appreciate just how radical a concept the single-engined V/STOL fighter jet was at the time.

Technicians work on a Bristol Siddeley Pegasus, as the BE.53 was officially christened, at the company’s works at Patch way circa 1962-63. Note the aerodynamic cascades incorporated into the nozzles, permitting the latter to be smaller and more efficient.

The author’s P.1163 - later redesignated HS.1170 - was essentially a modified P.1127, incorporating a single Bristol Siddeley BS.94/5 with nozzles, a development of the “straight-through” civil BS.75 turbofan. The design was ultimately abandoned, however.

H.S.1170 lightweight V/STOL strike reconnaissance aircraft

The distinctive West German EWR VJ101 experimental vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft.

Competing against Hawker’s P.1154 for the NBMR-3 supersonic V/STOL strike fighter requirement, France’s Dassault Mirage IIIV incorporated a single Snecma TF104 low-bypass-ratio turbofan engine for forward propulsion and eight lightweight Rolls-Royce RB.162 turbojets for direct lift. It is seen here in the hover in 1965.

Italy’s submission for the G.91 replacement was the Fiat G.95/4, designed by Giuseppe Gabrielli, who initially began with modifications to the G.91, which he had also designed. This model was prepared for the 1963 Paris Air Salon, and showed the basic layout of the design, which was to use a pair of turbojets for main propulsion and four RB.162s for lift.