Messerschmitt on the Nile

After 1945 Willy Messerschmitt, barred from building aircraft at home, went to Spain and Hispano Aviación. There he designed the HA-200 Saeta jet trainer and began a tiny supersonic fighter, the HA-300, which Spain abandoned in 1960. Egypt’s President Nasser wanted both. In 1959 Egypt took a licence for the trainer, built at the Helwan works south-east of Cairo as the HA-200B Al-Kahira, and Flight International reported 65 built there between 1960 and 1969.

A fighter and an engine

The fighter followed. Messerschmitt’s team moved to Factory No. 36 at Helwan, under the Egyptian General Aero Organisation, and the initials now stood for Helwan Aircraft. Nasser did not want to depend on a British engine after Suez, so the Austrian Ferdinand Brandner, who had led work on the Soviet NK-12 turboprop, designed the E-300 turbojet. India helped fund it for its HF-24 Marut. The first HA-300 flew on 7 March 1964, on an Orpheus, and reached Mach 1.13.

Cancelled in silence

A second prototype flew on 22 July 1965. The third, with the E-300, never got beyond taxi tests. More than E£135 million had been spent when the programme was cancelled in May 1969, without public explanation. Egypt turned to Soviet fighters instead, and the Helwan fighter became a might-have-been.

Továrny

• Factory No. 36 · Helwan, south-east of Cairo — Test facilities and workshops of the HA-300 programme

Lidé

• Willy Messerschmitt · chief designer — Led the HA-300 team from Spain to Egypt
• Ferdinand Brandner · engine designer — Austrian; designed the E-300 turbojet
• Gamal Abdel Nasser · President of Egypt — Backed an indigenous fighter and engine