Miles Aircraft - Aircraft Designs

Aircraft Designs

Their aircraft include the Hawk Trainer and its military variant, the Magister, as well as the Messenger and the Gemini. During the Second World War, they produced the Master advanced trainer, as well as the Martinet and Monitor target tugs.

The aircraft designed by Miles were often technologically and aerodynamically advanced for their time; the M.20 emergency production fighter prototype outperformed contemporary Hawker Hurricanes and Spitfires, despite having fixed landing gear. The X Minor was a flying testbed for blended wing-fuselage designs, although the large commercial transport intended to be produced from this research never entered production. The gigantic Miles X Airliner was to seat 55 and have eight engines buried in the wing, driving four sets of contra-rotating props and achieve a range of 3,450 miles.

The Miles Libellula were tandem-wing designs for a fighter and a bomber. Having two wings, one each end of the aircraft, movements of the centre of gravity due to fuel or ammunition use were less of a problem.

The world's first supersonic jet aircraft, the Miles M.52, was nearly completed. The design of the Miles M.52, in particular its crucial fully articulated tailplane, influenced the design of the Bell X-1. A recent BBC documentary on the history of supersonic flight told how the British Air Ministry cancelled the M.52 project and ordered Miles to hand over all data to the Bell Corporation, allowing the Americans to claim to be the first to break the sound barrier.