01/31/2010. Remarks by Johan Visschedijk: "Developed under the Vichy regime by Morane-Saulnier chief designer René Gauthier, the M.S.470.01 two-seat advanced trainer prototype made its first flight on December 22, 1944, powered by a 700 hp Gnome & Rhône 14M radial engine. Successful tests led to a French AF order for three prototypes of the revised M.S.472 Vanneau II, and the M.S.472.01 first flew December 12, 1945, powered by a 690 hp Hispano-Suiza 12X engine. From December 1946 onwards 230 M.S.472s were delivered.

An M.S.472 was temporarily modified for carrier operations to serve as the prototype M.S.474 Vanneau IV in February of 1947, and 70 series aircraft were delivered to the French Navy from December 1947. The prototype of another version, fitted with an 850 hp Hispano-Suiza 12Y-45 V-engine, was first flown on August 8, 1947, designated M.S.475 Vanneau V. Deliveries of the 200 production aircraft to the French AF began in March 1950.

The M.S.475 proved superior to its predecessors in manoeuvrability, speed and rate of turn, incorporating a wing of improved design, but a more radical modification with an increase in wing surface area was incorporated in one production machine, which was then re-designated M.S.476.01. Another M.S.475 was re-engined with a 580 hp SNECMA Renault 12S-02 and became the M.S.477.01, flown in November 1950.

The last experimental development was M.S.472 no. 295 modified as the M.S.479.01 to take an 819 pk SNECMA 14X Super Mars engine. It first flew in March 1952, but development was soon abandoned. The Vanneaus remained in service with the French AF and Navy into the late 1960s."