Miles M.35
| Miles M.35 | |
|---|---|
 M.35 in the later version with rear wheel |
|
| Type: | Experimental tandem aircraft |
| Design country: | |
| Manufacturer: | |
| First flight: |
May 1942 |
| Number of pieces: |
1 |
The Miles M.35 Libellula was an experimental tandem aircraft made by the British manufacturer Miles Aircraft in the early 1940s.
history
The development of the M.35 is closely linked to the Westland P.12 "Delanne" Lysander , which flew for the first time on July 27, 1941. The aircraft was named after Maurice Delanne, who designed the Arsenal-Delanne 10 tandem fighter in the late 1930s . The Westland P.12 received the dummy of a quadruple defense turret in the stern as a replacement for the weak serial armament of one (Lysander I) or two Browning machine guns (Lysander III).
A problem with the carrier-based fighters of the Fleet Air Arm in the early 1940s was that mainly converted land aircraft, such as the Sea Hurricane and Seafire , had to be used. When George Miles, one of the founders of the Miles Aircraft Company, visited the Airplane and Armament Experimental Establishment in November 1941 and saw the Westland P.12 being tested there, its constructive design inspired him to develop his own concept. According to his idea, it should be possible with a rear-engined tandem aircraft with a pusher propeller to store the necessary weapons and fuel in the central fuselage and to position the pilot in the fuselage nose. The pilot would have the best visibility during a carrier landing and a folding device for the wings would not be necessary due to the shorter tandem wings. In addition, lift aids could be installed on both wings to improve flight characteristics at low speeds.
Instead of following the usual development path and starting with wind tunnel tests first, Miles decided to build an airworthy wooden dummy directly in order to obtain data with full-scale tests without detours. Due to lack of time, he also waived the support and actually required participation of the Ministry of Aircraft Production (MAP).
The machine now called M.35 was then designed by Ray Bournon, under the supervision of George Miles. In order to get an idea of the expected handling before the first flight, a 1: 4 scale model was built, which was towed by the prototype of the Miles M.28 . Directly after the release but entered a stall , and the model fell vertically from. At the end of April 1942, construction of the M.35 was completed after just six weeks. The aircraft received the Miles test registration (B-Condition-Serial) U0235 . George Miles himself carried out the first flight, whereby the machine showed no tendency to take off even after 3/4 of the available take-off distance. Only when he suddenly reduced the power did the aircraft take off to a height of about 3 m. The further flight tests also showed that the machine only rose into the air after throttling its power during the take-off run . Miles then increased the performance again in an attempt after take-off, after which he was able to maintain a height of about 7 m and perform a traffic pattern.
After wind tunnel tests, it was finally possible to find a ballast distribution in the fuselage that largely eliminated the problem of unstable flight behavior. Miles then considered the tandem wing to be a useful configuration for the Fleet Air Arm on a fighter aircraft. A corresponding proposal concept was sent to the MAP and the Admiralty , with the name Libellula appearing for the first time . The immediate official reply was that such an aircraft could not be airworthy. To which George merely replied that it was actually already flying and invited to a demonstration. The MAP responded with a severe reprimand for building an aircraft without a permit. The British Admiralty also showed no interest in the proposal for the new fighter aircraft concept.
However, Miles made another attempt to market his concept profitably by making a corresponding offer for the B.11 / 41 tender with the Miles M.39 in early 1942 .
construction
The M.35 was a single-seat wooden construction that was driven by a two-blade fixed propeller from a 130 hp De Havilland Gipsy Major built into the stern . The landing gear legs and wheels of the fixed nose wheel landing gear were standard components from the Miles Magister production. Later, a fourth wheel was installed under the stern to protect the propeller from contact with the ground. The front wing with flaps and elevators was mounted in a shoulder- wing arrangement above the fuselage and had no V-position . The aft low-wing wing had a straight central section and swept outer sections with end plates that took on the function of rudders. This wing had ailerons and landing flaps.
Technical specifications
| Parameter | Data |
|---|---|
| crew | 1 |
| length | 6.20 m |
| span | 6.10 m (front), 6.22 m (rear) |
| height | 2.10 m |
| Wing area | 4.65 m² (front), 7.85 m² (front) |
| Empty mass | 661 kg |
| Takeoff mass | 840 kg |
| Top speed | could not be determined |
| Engines | 1 × De Havilland Gipsy Major four-cylinder in-line engine with 130 PS (95.6 kW) starting power |
See also
literature
- Don Brown: The Miles "Dragonflies . In: Airplane Monthly June 1973, pp. 62-66
- Philip Jarrett: Nothing Ventured… No. 6, Miles Libellula . In: Airplane Monthly September 1990, pp. 532-334
- Don L. Brown: Miles Aircraft since 1925 , Putnam & Co., 1970, ISBN 0-370-00127-3 , pp. 213-217
Individual evidence
- ^ William Green: Fighters (War Planes of the Second World War, Volume One) , MacDonald, 1966, pp. 24-25
- ↑ Philip Jarrett: Nothing Ventured… No. 3, Westland "Delanne" Lysander . In: Airplane Monthly June 1990, p. 334
- ↑ Philip Jarrett: Nothing Ventured… No. 7, Miles M.39B . In: Airplane Monthly October 1990, p. 596