Frederick George Miles

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Frederick George Miles (born March 22, 1903 in Worthing , Sussex ; † August 15, 1976 ibid) was a British aircraft designer who designed and built numerous civil and military small aircraft and a number of prototypes .

Early years

Miles was born on March 22, 1903 in Worthing , Sussex, the eldest of four sons of laundry operator Frederick Gaston Miles and his wife Esther. At the 1901 census, Miles's father was registered as a 25-year-old laundry warehouse worker. At the next count in 1911, he was already the owner of the laundry, which was in operation until the 1970s. Miles father was a successful businessman who nurtured his son's early interest in aviation .

Miles dropped out of school in 1916 and opened a motorcycle rental company. He soon became interested in airplanes and in 1922, together with his brother George and some friends, he built a small biplane called Gnat, which however never flew.

Miles persuaded the aviation pioneer Cecil Pashley to partner in the emerging aviation industry and learned to fly with him on his Avro 504 K at Shoreham Airport . The partnership between Pashley and Miles led in May 1927 to the opening of the Gnat Airplane Co., a flying school that also offered sightseeing flights. The company was officially named Gnat Aero Company, Ltd. established with a capital of £ 1,500 .

The first directors were Frederick George Miles, Cecil Pashley and F. Gaston Miles. The company soon began offering aircraft repairs and was split into the Southern Aero Club and Southern Aircraft. One of the planes Miles bought was an Avro Baby , which he developed into the Southern Martlet . Magnus Herman Volk, Magnus Volk's eldest son, later joined the company as managing director.

Private life

In 1930 Miles planned to emigrate to South Africa to get out of trouble he had gotten into because of an affair with a student pilot. However, he returned a year later and married his former student Maxine Freeman-Thomas . Blossom, as Maxine was called, was the daughter of actor Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson . She was a pilot , designer, technical draftsman , aerodynamicist , engineer and managing director of an industrial company. She supervised the construction of the Miles Technical School.

Miles and Blossom lived in the Cudlow House in Rustington, which was the inspiration for James Matthew Barrie's stories about Peter Pan .

Phillips and Powis

Charles Lindbergh's Miles Mohawk

Together, Miles and his wife developed the Miles M1 Satyr in 1932 . The single-seat biplane was built by George Parnall & Co in Yate .

In the same year Miles met Charles Powis . Powis was a mechanical engineer and owner of the aircraft manufacturer Phillips and Powis, which was located at the Woodley Aerodrome in Woodley near Reading .

Miles agreed to develop an inexpensive but modern light aircraft - the Miles Hawk - which was built by Phillips and Powis in Woodley. The Hawk sold well, and Miles joined the company as technical director and chief designer. His brother George worked as a test pilot and head of engine development for Phillips and Powis. Further successful designs including a custom-made product for Charles Lindbergh - the Miles Mohawk - followed.

In 1935, Phillips and Powis became a public company with Rolls-Royce as a major shareholder. Miles became chairman of the board and managing director and his brother George became technical director and chief designer. With the expansion of the Royal Air Force , the company won a £ 2 million contract in 1937 to build the Miles Magister trainer aircraft . A further order for 900 units of the pattern master I followed in 1938. After that, the company still received orders for 2,402 machines of the type Master II and III as well as for 1,789 machines of the type Martinet and Queen Martinet, which were mainly built for the Royal Air Force . Some specimens were also delivered to the Royal Navy and exported abroad.

Aircraft engines

In the late 1930s designed CF Caunter a light two-stroke aircraft engine with a rated power of 60  PS (44  kW ). Miles built a prototype of this engine and successfully tested it at the Woodley Aerodrome . However, after the start of World War II , Phillips and Powis had to turn his full attention to the construction of aircraft and Caunter eventually sold his construction to the Alvis Car and Engineering Company .

Miles Aircraft

Miles M.52

When Rolls-Royce lost interest in Phillips and Powis, Miles bought the shares in 1941 and took control of the company, which he renamed Miles Aircraft Limited in 1943 . Miles and his wife also opened the Miles Aeronautical School to train technicians and draftsmen. Miles' apprentices developed an airframe that came to be known as the Miles Venture .

In 1943, Miles learned of a prototype ballpoint pen that had been developed by László Bíró and offered to produce the pen for the Royal Air Force. The Ministry was skeptical that this production could distract Miles from building airplanes, but Miles eventually persuaded the government to have seventeen unskilled laborers produce the Biro . The Biro became the world's first commercially successful ballpoint pen. After the end of World War II, the Biro factory in Reading with 700 employees became the Miles Martin Pen Company and the Biro was sold to the general public.

Together with his brother Miles developed a concept for a supersonic aircraft - the M.52 - which was to be powered by the then secret jet engine invented by Frank Whittle . In 1946 the relevant contract with the government was canceled and the program ended. The data obtained by then were passed on to the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics , which was also working on the construction of a supersonic jet at the time.

In 1948, problems returning to civil aircraft production led to the collapse of Miles Aircraft. On March 21, 1950, an investigation by the Board of Trade led to charges against Miles and former Miles Aircraft accountant Sir William Mount for misrepresentation in a prospectus to build the Aerovan , Merchantman and other aircraft. The court then set a bail of £ 500 each. Both men were eventually acquitted.

FG Miles Limited

Undeterred by the collapse of his company, Miles founded a new company in Redhill in 1949 under the name FG Miles Ltd , which moved back to Shoreham in 1952. In 1961 the company became part of the newly founded Beagle Aircraft . Miles became vice chairman and his brother chief designer. Beagle Aircraft ran into financial difficulties in 1969 and was disbanded in 1970.

FG Miles and its subsidiaries continued the business of flight simulators , airframes and other aviation projects. In 1975, Hunting plc took control of FG Miles and its subsidiaries. The company was renamed Hunting Hivolt and Miles' son Jeremy became a director.

Miles died on August 15, 1976 in Worthing, Sussex.

literature

  • Peter Amos: Miles Aircraft: The Early Years, The Story of FG Miles and his Airplanes, 1925-1939 . Air-Britain (Historians) Ltd, Tonbridge 2009, ISBN 978-0-85130-410-6 (English).
  • Peter Amos: Miles Aircraft: The Wartime Years, 1939 to 1945 . Air-Britain (Historians) Ltd, Tonbridge 2012, ISBN 978-0-85130-430-4 (English).
  • Don Lambert Brown: Miles Aircraft Since 1925 . Putnam & Company Ltd., London 1970, ISBN 0-370-00127-3 (English).
  • Tony Butler: Secret Projects: British Fighters and Bombers 1935-1950 . Midland Publishing, Leicester 2004, ISBN 1-85780-179-2 (English).
  • AJ Jackson: 'British Civil Aircraft since 1919, Volume 2 . Putnam, London 1973, ISBN 0-370-10010-7 (English).
  • Julian C. Temple: Wings Over Woodley - The Story of Miles Aircraft and the Adwest Group . Aston Publications, Bourne End 1987, ISBN 0-946627-12-6 (English).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ London Gazette . No. 45685, HMSO, London, May 25, 1972, p. 43 ( PDF , accessed June 1, 2020, English).
  2. ^ New Company Registered . In: Flight International . Reed Business Information , May 26, 1927, ISSN  0015-3710 , p. 340 (English, archive.org ).
  3. ^ Miles Technical School . In: Flight International . Reed Business Information , April 18, 1946, ISSN  0015-3710 , p. 398 (English, archive.org ).
  4. ^ House that inspired Peter Pan for sale. The Argus, October 22, 2004, accessed May 31, 2020 .
  5. ^ AJ Jackson: 'British Civil Aircraft since 1919, Volume 2 . Putnam, London 1973, ISBN 0-370-10010-7 , pp. 69 (English).
  6. ^ Don Lambert Brown: Miles Aircraft Since 1925 . Putnam & Company Ltd., London 1970, ISBN 0-370-00127-3 , pp. 114 (English).
  7. ^ Don Lambert Brown: Miles Aircraft Since 1925 . Putnam & Company Ltd., London 1970, ISBN 0-370-00127-3 , pp. 170 (English).
  8. ^ Don Lambert Brown: Miles Aircraft Since 1925 . Putnam & Company Ltd., London 1970, ISBN 0-370-00127-3 , pp. 191 (English).
  9. ↑ a b Miles . In: Flight International . Reed Business Information , August 28, 1976, ISSN  0015-3710 , p. 511-513 (English, archive.org ).
  10. ↑ Steven Braggs: From luxury to throwaway: the story of the Biro. Retrowow, February 2018, accessed May 31, 2020 .
  11. ↑ Richard P. Hallion: NASA's First 50 Years . NASA, September 7, 2011, p. 231 (English).
  12. ^ Don Lambert Brown: Miles Aircraft Since 1925 . Putnam & Company Ltd., London 1970, ISBN 0-370-00127-3 , pp. 346 (English).
  13. ^ From All Quarters . In: Flight International . Reed Business Information , December 2, 1960, ISSN  0015-3710 , p. 862 (English, archive.org ).
  14. ^ Industry International: Hunting Associated Industries . In: Flight International . Reed Business Information , November 27, 1975, ISSN  0015-3710 , p. 805 (English, archive.org ).
personal data
SURNAME Miles, Frederick George
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Miles, FG
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British businessman and aircraft designer
DATE OF BIRTH March 22, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Worthing , Sussex
DATE OF DEATH 15th August 1976
Place of death Worthing , Sussex