Two French companies, Fouga and Morane Saulnier, saw a market for such a basic jet trainer and realised the potential of the Turbomeca engines for this application. Fouga presented a proposal for a tandem two seat trainer to the French Air Ministry, the CM.130R, which was powered by two 353 lbst (160kgst) Palas engines. The design was refined and a contract for three of the resulting twin Marbore II powered CM.170R aircraft was placed with Fouga in December 1950. The Morane Saulnier company were working along similar lines at this time, and their drawing boards brought the MS.755 Fleuret. It was designed under the direction of engineer Paul-René Gauthier, who was then director of Morane-Saulnier engineering department.
It was an all-metal mid-wing cantilever monoplane with a T-type tail. The MS.755 Fleuret featured side by side seating, the wing was set slightly lower on the fuselage and had a lower aspect ratio, the tail surfaces were conventional and the two Turbomeca Marbore II turbojet engines were faired more into the fuselage than the semi podded arrangement evident on the Magister. Air intakes were located in the wing roots. The two pilots seats were attached to an aerodynamically balanced trap in the fuselage, which operated following jettison of a hatch in the underbelly in an emergency and ejected the two occupants through the floor of the cockpit.
The construction of two prototypes was launched at the same time. Cn 01 (F-ZWRS) began its taxi tests in January 1953 (while its competitor, the Fouga Magister, made its first flight on July 23, 1952). The MS-755 made its maiden flight on 26 January 1953, with Morane-Saulnier chief test pilot Jean Cliquet at the controls, accompanied by flight engineer Ferdinand Naudy. Jean Cliquet took off from Melun-Villaroche for a 15 minute flight. The aircraft did not exceed the altitude of 800-900 m considered a limited ceiling. Two other flights were made the next day. On January 31, a flight was performed with the commander Grigaut (Head of Bretigny AB. *Flight Test Center (CEAM)). February 12 was the official flight presentation of the aircraft to President Robert Morane and the executive committee.
On 30 April 1953, the aircraft is delivred to Bretigny Flight Test Center for official qualifying tests. At that time 57 flights and almost 35 hours of flights have been made.
After stopping the program, Cn 02 was converted into four-seater as the MS-760 01.
After evaluating the merits of both aircraft, the French Air Force expressed a preference for tandem seating, and in 1953 placed an initial order for ten pre production and 95 production CM.170R Magister aircraft.
The initial success of the Magister was not lost on Morane¬Saulnier, who decided not to compete head on and thus developed the Fleuret into a four seat light communications aircraft by enlarging the cabin, increasing the internal fuel capacity and strengthening the airframe. This became the MS.760 Paris.
Engines: 2 x Turbomeca Mabores
Wing span: 33ft (10m)
Overall length: 31.83ft (9.7m)
Height: 8.92 ft (2.7 m)
Wing area: 193.7 sq.ft (18 sq.m)
Wing aspect ratio: 5.12
Empty wt: 4190 lb (1902 kg)
Normal T/O wt: 5830 lb (2646 kg)
MTOW: 6710 lb (3046 kg)
Internal fuel cap: 150 Imp.Gal. (681 lt)
External fuel cap: 55 Imp.Gal. (250 lt)
Wing loading: 30.1 lb/sq.ft (147 kg/sq.m)
Pwr loading: 3.3 lb/lbst (3.3 kg/kgst)
Max speed: 446 mph (717 kph)
Initial ROC: 3350 fpm (17 m/sec)
TO dist 50 ft: 2400 ft (732 m)
Range: 435 sm (698 km)
