The Miles company produced some amazingly advanced aircraft concepts, such as the M.30, the M.56 air liner, the M.100 and latterly designs for a super sonic aircraft the M.52. An in-depth documentary of this company would be fascinating imo.
It would be worth a visit to the Berkshire Museum of Aviation , on the fringe of what was in my childhood the aerodrome at Woodley where miles were based and where D Bader crashed .
A tandem wing, which looks to me to be a canard elevator surface expanded, makes a lot of sense. Many of other countries have canard fighters which have incredible maneuverability. The US has toyed with such a concept for the F-15 and F-16, I believe. Burt Rutan, the designer of the Round-the-World non-stop, non-refueled A/C used the canard in all his designs. For one thing, they can be made stall and therefore spin aerodynamically proof by having the forward wing stall first, thereby lowering the nose automatically. For those unfamiliar with stalls, that is the immediate solution and prevention of spins. (Former Naval aviator and instructor pilot here)
Apparently one of the downsides of canards is that they're exceptionally difficult to make low-observable. I don't know why, but I think that going forward, that would be a deal breaker.
Plenty of existing data on those Saabs. Impossible for Chinese to NOT know all about that. Unless they think there’s a counter-measure. Maneuvering was F-16 generation -- BEYOND VISUAL - game-over.
For an interesting aircraft look up NATF-23 and see what Northrop offered the Navy!! Honeslty I like sea widow better than the original black widow 2 that competed against the raptor!! They moved the diamond shaped wings back as far as they could and added canards and instead of the ruddervator they had on the yt-23 they went back to traditional canted vertical tails. Also instead of serrations on just the back of the plane they had serrations on the back of the plane and the tail section!! Very interesting aircraft, the navy took one look at it and said “why would we want canards on a 5th gen aircraft?” So they redesigned it without the canards but the navy still passed on it as a replacement for their f-14 tomcat’s. I think what that’s when they chose the super hornets which was supposed to be a continuation of a previous lineage and save money in development but in the end only shared like 30% of the parts so was a whole ass new aircraft itself. At one point Grumman offered them updated tomcats too I know one was f-21 super tomcat iirc but there was also another supertomcat they passed on, it I believe still had the f-14 designation. I think the 21 came later but anyways they passed on it for the same excuse they used to sell the hornets to Congress, they said even tho it shared names and a few parts that most of it was new parts so it would cost a lot to develop and produce. I really wish the sea widow would have gotten adopted tho, tbh chinas j-20 looks an awful lot like it in many ways!!
I have 1700 hours in a Rutan Defiant push pull twin engine canard. It was actually a tandem wing design where the canard carried the weight of the front engine Many early canards were not very stable if they were not a loaded canard. It was incredibly stable as long as the plane was not loaded aft of the aft cg limit.
However, Miles M52 was to become the UK supersonic experimental when it was cancelled in 1946, the All Moving Tailplane was adopted by Bell for the X-1 when they consulted with Miles about the control issues.
@@johnstirling6597 Yep. The 1st was the Air Minister after the war who saw all German fast jet designs had swept wings so he refused the M52 to fly as he didn't want any more test-pilots to die. The second, was when the Air Minister (I think 1960) decided missiles were the future and cancelled all fighter programs/research - the English Electric Lightening managed to squeak through as it was so far along development. After that, it was downhill all the way.
Good topic, nice lecture. Miles is one of the most innovative British aircraft designers. With his M 20, an emergency solution to the RAF's fighter shortage, something between a Spitfire and Typoon. Otherwise, he is known for a large series of different two-seater training and private aircraft where wing profiles and body frames could be used based on existing building components and spare parts.
The M20 took the "power egg" i.e Merlin and cowling from a Lancaster bomber and built a fighter around it. Very fast journey from drawing board to production - although it wasn't needed in the end.
Unfortunately there were a large number of uneducated twats in the upper echelons of power in the UK. Some could be regarded as outright traitors... but were a protected specie old boy.... school tie and all that eh wot.....
I had the pleasure of seeing a similar aircraft to this fly over my house a couple of years ago. I Googled to an engine aircraft with Canard Wing and found the aircraft, the Piaggio P180 Avanti II Business Aircraft . It was immensely impressive.
@@vvr881 The words spoken were "two hundred twenty millimeter cannons," not "two twenty millimeter cannons." Obviously an unrecognized typo or a misreading. Or maybe it had 200 x 20mm cannons.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE? He said "Two hundred and twenty millimeter cannons". THINK ABOUT IT EINSTEINS... Millimeter cannons are unlikely to shoot anything down UNLESS there are two hundred and twenty of them. Derrrrr... ᴶᵉˢᵘˢ! ᵂʰᵃᵗ ᵃʳᵉ ᵗʰᵉʸ ᵗᵉᵃᶜʰᶦⁿᵍ ᵗʰᵉˢᵉ ʰᵃˡᶠʷᶦᵗˢ ᵗʰᵉˢᵉ ᵈᵃʸˢˀ
The Beech _Starship_ was a rear-wing pusher with canards in front, similarly the Boeing/Sukhoi Near Sonic Cruiser. The late Roger Tener of Beechcraft used to say, "They call then canards because you canardly see 'em." 👍🖖
I saw a beech starship narrowly mis a mid air collision 😮 with a B-1b one afternoon the starship broke right sharply it was the only air plane they made that could have made the avoidance turn quick enough. That would have been a mouthful for even a B1b to swallow.
Now I can see where Burt Rutan got his inspiration for the Long EZ aircraft. Also, miles aircraft produced the M52 which was Britain's faster than sound aircraft tests. And I believe they came up with the design of the stabilator, which cured the compresability problems of transonic flight. The Americans "borrowed" the design which allowed the bell x1 to break the sound barrier.
Most probably the failure to win those crucial war-dept contracts was because those in positions of power within the Defence Ministry had very strong financial ties to those larger, well established manufacturing companies which already dominated the industry, and consequently weren't willing to risk existing profitable contracts!
That company was so innovative and had such forward thinking designs. By incorporating the swept wing, they would have gained so much more control and greater speeds with the right engines. They really could have sent aviation in a whole new direction and influenced how all future planes were developed if the military really funded them through the whole plane development. Great episode guys, thanks for sharing.
@wilson rawlin thanks! I'm always looking for unique aircraft to model, as I'm tired of seeing the same ones done to death. I'll try to do a build vlog (for once)
Do please! I'm currently scratch building a horten h-iiie (powered version) and am enjoying all the figuring out that has to be done. The stability without a rudder scares me but hey, the build is fun!
You've got to wonder how many really good designs never left the ground because someone pitched a fit over the right piece of paper not being signed, or someone not standing in the right line...
@@flickingbollocks5542 i would change that to always double check what everyone says - it's a good rule for life, never an insult to the person being checked and a great way to learn.
Do a google search for the Curtiss-Wright XP-55 Ascender and you'll really see the VariEze, Long-EZ, Beech Starship. The XP-55 was in development in the US at the same time as the Miles M.35. The XP-55 would have been an excellent aircraft, but they couldn't get a powerful enough engine, so its performance was disappointing. Just like the Starship performance was disappointing...because the FAA made Beech overbuild the fuselage and it was too heavy.
@@jamesf.ryaniii7918 Excellent comment, thank you. I'm familiar with some of the designs you mentioned. I even think the Germans had a similar design? Thank you for your knowledge on this subject. You get an A+
I believe the Bell X1 used elevators as its primary pitch control, and the tailplane had a jackscrew on the leading edge of the tailplane (like a Piper Cub) as its trim control, Yeager was able to regain control of the pitch using the trim control when the shockwave attached to the elevator/tailplane gap caused the nose down pitch.
The design's only main advantage is the carrier landing aspect. Having a wing just behind your cockpit creates a huge blindspot for enemies to approach you from behind.
I hope a lot of the many Rutan-aholics have been noticing that, like in this video, Burt didn't invent (create) anything in the Canard world of design. He just refined the several concepts already created in the late 30's through late 40's. HOLD ON-- I'm only speaking of Canard designs. He did create some very interesting designs, like the Boomerang aircraft.
Gonna admit that the apparently limited footage available had you talking about a specific aircraft that did not match what was onscreen. Describing a shoulder mounted forewing, low mounted rear wing and a single engine, but the aircraft was the opposite with two engines. Kind of confusing. Good story. Needed better supporting visuals
They were also well on the way to producing the world's first supersonic jet plane in 1946 but the project was cancelled and Chuck Yeyger did it in the Bell X1 rocket plane in 1947 .
The Miles M-52 was designed to go 1000 miles at 1000 mph using a Nene jet engine. Test pilot Eric Brown was ready to go. Sadly the British government cancelled the project and gave the design to USA. It never flew but the Bell X-1 was a poor copy.
Thank you very much for this piece of history. Miles' plane was certainly ahead of its time, canard and swept wings, what a genius design. We can see it's shadow in Concord and Eurofighter Typhoon. Salute to pioneers.
Hi. With the prototype needing three vertical stabilizers, I'd suggest this plane had problems with yaw and longitudinal stability. One engine out would make it impossible to fly in a straight line because of the short moment arm between the wing and tail. The short distance between the front and rear wings would probably cause "porpoising", and an oversensitivity to correction control input. For any aircraft the two "biggies" for safety are stall recovery and spin recovery, and in any military aircraft, they're absolutely essential. The American Curtiss-Wright XP55 Ascender also failed on these, as did Northrop's B 49 tailless bomber. Exceptional efficiency in one thing doesn't make for good all round performance. Great experiment though. Cheers, P.R.
Interesting the name dragonfly. One of the aircraft that I owned was designed and built on the same principle, It was coincidentally named Dragonfly Mk4. it was a very fast, and efficient airplane, but it was not easy to fly.
Thank you for sharing this particular video. Greatly enjoyed it . In my humble opinion, this is very bold, effective and a forward thinking design. We see elements of this design in some of the modern and effective jet aircraft that are flying today. One must respect the courage, the dedication and the grit of those who seek to pursue their dreams while desiring to revolutionize an industry.👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Yeah, I was disappointed to find out rutan was just a copy cat. I came out to try and work for scaled, they're just part of the military industrial complex now and don't produce anything like the rest of the politicians, but they tax your dollars like crazy! Then live in nice houses and produce halfway decent websites to fool people into thinking they're actually a company and not just front for money laundering
The planform and design characteristics are virtually identical to the "Long EZ" design of Burt Rutan which confirmed the stall resistant and good harmonic control of the design. I cannot help but think Burt may have got his inspiration from the Miles Aircraft and it proved to be outstanding.
As an entrepreneur n manufacturer, one have to always remember to be ambitious and practical, let this be a lesson to us for whatever new innovation we want to endeavour, if it’s a stupid idea DONT do it.
Another approach to view issues when landing could be a Short Aspect Ratio machine, as the Arup, the Vought V-173, 'Flying Pancake', it land in an steep line, rather than in a path tangent to surface. You can see the 'Nurflugel' site. Or you can add a camera, and a TV Screen inside cockpit. Gesund +
Two 20mm cannon, not 220mm which would have made the plane too heavy to take off. Some info on the engines of the M30 would have been useful. The RAF already had a high speed bomber which had proved very successful, so would not have been interested in another which could not exceed the performance of the Mosquito.
Canards may come back in a new way..as DRONES WITH NEW COMPOSIT materials...like fiber glass carbon they are lightweight and don't have a high radar fingerprint... Mr Miles was a true pioner and engineer... Burt Rutans canards were way ahead of their time and we owe him a big THANK YOU!! This is a great video... Thank you...😮
These Canard configurations were finally tamed by Burt Rutan. They were loaded canards. I have built and flown both a varieze and a center line twin Defiant. The Defiant was more of a tandem wing design. All of Burt Rutan designs were not all Canards. They were a pure joy to fly. The Beechcraft Starship became a fully certified turboprop twin. It was popular but failed to be a commercial success. Very beautiful in flight.
i once saw an at6 come within a few feet of landing on top of another at6. pilot never saw the other plane the tower told him just in time and that wonderful plane just powered up and missed the lower plane by a couple feet.
Great video. From my layman's point of view, though making it easier to land the plane on carriers, the military wasn't ready to essentially gamble on a design just to make airplanes easier to land. They might have thought "Ok, it'll make landing easier, but the designs we have today don't make it impossible. We're confident our pilots will pull it off. Let's just stick to what's proven until now." Maybe he "sold" the design around that single feature and benefit - better visibility - and that just wasn't enough.
Odd that they can cancel a contract with no compensation to the company who put it all out there for them. It's a shame to see that kind of innovation shut down over a contract dispute, they would have been helpful during the war as designers thinking outside the box.
Most probably because those in positions of power within the Defence Ministry had very strong financial ties to those larger, well established manufacturing companies which already dominated the industry, and consequently weren't willing to risk existing profitable contracts!
Never yet met a good pilot who looked down at the runway. Most of us look toward the far end of the runway, ahead of us, to determine height above ground. Works the same for carriers - look at the forward end of the runway and at the LSO.
Yes, correct. I bounced on landing several times until another instructor came to me and said 'its like riding a bike. Look straight ahead,, and you will aways grease it on. Look down and you will be unstable in your landings."
One of the great forgotten companies. More British pilots trained for monoplane flying on Miles Magisters than any other plane, and they were still in use in my long ago youth.
By putting the engines in the wing you didn’t need a tandem wing layout to improve visibility - you already had it with a conventional layout such as with the De Havilland Sea Hornet
The Sea Hornet was a fighter, Miles was building a bomber. The point, though, was to aim for a smaller wingspan and more flexible disposition of bombs and fuel than would have been otherwise possible, depending on the relative size of the wings - some Miles designs had them much more equal in size than the M39B.
Jet engines made the view issue obsolete. Fighters still sweat bullets landing on aircraft carriers. Still these were ingenious designs and innovative at the time. Almost ironic that forward Canards are now state of the art for many modern fighters.
Unfortunately, it was not a stable design and grew in size to where an aircraft carrier landing was difficult as they kept extending the wings which were not foldable
I have to wonder -- did Burt Rutan know about the Libellula? But it's a damn shame about this bird. If only some ace pilot had stood up for it the way Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron himself, stood up for the Fokker Triplane ...
WHY does this channel miss the important detail which should be up front. Miles was a British company but the American based channel seems to have a problem with innovation from outside the USA. ?
@@bricefleckenstein9666 Given that the VariViggen was Rutan's first kit aircraft and it actually has the delta wing w/canard layout of the SAAB Viggen (as opposed to the high aspect ratio rear wing of the later VariEZe), as well as being literally named after it, I suspect that people might be confusing which Rutan design was inspired by the Viggen... The VariEze design is at least another step removed, but "inspired by an earlier, less popular, design that was inspired by the Viggen" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, so I can understand the urge of reporters writing articles to conflate "Burt Rutan was inspired to start designing kit planes by the canard delta design of the Viggen" with "the VariEze is Rutan's most popular kit plane".
Yes a very good design, as it makes better use of the cabin by having the main spar aft. This would make a great GA aircraft. Also with engine near the CG it will accept a wide variety of power plants.
Grew up in a valley and there were a pair of local canard experimental planes that used to scream through, twisting through it. Heard they were a hand full to fly but my goodness they could maneuver accurately at high speeds.
A related concept to the tandem-wing and canard designs is the three-surface aircraft. The best-known example of this concept is the Piaggio Avanti. It has many of the same advantages as canards (including reduced total wing area, and hence reduced drag), but also avoids the limitations of elevator authority that often come along with putting the elevators on the canard, because the elevators are instead on the conventional tailplane.
If this baby the M30 really had 220mm canons in the wings, that is some serious fire power! More than a Heavy Cruiser of its era, way more than an M1 Abrams! Also, if it had a max weight of 26,750 lbs, that's about the same as a modern F-16 Fighting Falcon! Very impressive!
There were several other companies that looked at this concept around the same time, I believe one was in France. It’s a canard layout with the canard wing span being close to the main wing. This layout is stable and both wings produce lift, unlike aircraft with the smaller wing in back. Also, lol 220mm guns in the wings? That’s a really big gun. (8.5”) I suspect you meant 2@20mm cannons.
That name...I can tell you from experience that looks and "names" do have an impact on decision-makers. He'd have been better off calling that plane the "Sweat Bee" or the "Fruit Fly" - anything but the Libellula...
how the hell do you NOT VERIFY CG BEFORE FLIGHT??? Epic fail by that guy my god. that blew my mind.... the cg shouldve been known before a single piece was put together...then verified once fueled, loaded with whatever etc... Miles was a great designer, such an oversight as cg trips me out
A pusher will always be handicapped by the possibility of a propeller strike during takeoff and landing. It gets worse with larger propellers needed for high horsepower. The idea is a tractor twin engined canard is brillant, but it will always be more expensive than a single engine. It would love to see this layout compared to a Mosquito, with the same engines.
Reminds me of what happened to Northrop Flying Wing concept at the end of World War 2. To my understanding, at the end, all prototypes were scrapped under the orders of the US Air Force. Very sad that the Miles company did not succeed.
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The Miles company produced some amazingly advanced aircraft concepts, such as the M.30, the M.56 air liner, the M.100 and latterly designs for a super sonic aircraft the M.52.
An in-depth documentary of this company would be fascinating imo.
Agreed, you could say this could go 'Miles' to help understanding.... Get it Miles...- I'll get me coat.
It would be worth a visit to the Berkshire Museum of Aviation , on the fringe of what was in my childhood the aerodrome at Woodley where miles were based and where D Bader crashed .
A tandem wing, which looks to me to be a canard elevator surface expanded, makes a lot of sense. Many of other countries have canard fighters which have incredible maneuverability. The US has toyed with such a concept for the F-15 and F-16, I believe. Burt Rutan, the designer of the Round-the-World non-stop, non-refueled A/C used the canard in all his designs. For one thing, they can be made stall and therefore spin aerodynamically proof by having the forward wing stall first, thereby lowering the nose automatically. For those unfamiliar with stalls, that is the immediate solution and prevention of spins. (Former Naval aviator and instructor pilot here)
Apparently one of the downsides of canards is that they're exceptionally difficult to make low-observable. I don't know why, but I think that going forward, that would be a deal breaker.
@@kevinrusch3627Someone should have told the Chinese that it isn’t good for low observable aircraft. I hope you’re right.
Plenty of existing data on those Saabs.
Impossible for Chinese to NOT know all about that. Unless they think there’s a counter-measure. Maneuvering was F-16 generation -- BEYOND VISUAL - game-over.
For an interesting aircraft look up NATF-23 and see what Northrop offered the Navy!! Honeslty I like sea widow better than the original black widow 2 that competed against the raptor!! They moved the diamond shaped wings back as far as they could and added canards and instead of the ruddervator they had on the yt-23 they went back to traditional canted vertical tails. Also instead of serrations on just the back of the plane they had serrations on the back of the plane and the tail section!! Very interesting aircraft, the navy took one look at it and said “why would we want canards on a 5th gen aircraft?” So they redesigned it without the canards but the navy still passed on it as a replacement for their f-14 tomcat’s. I think what that’s when they chose the super hornets which was supposed to be a continuation of a previous lineage and save money in development but in the end only shared like 30% of the parts so was a whole ass new aircraft itself. At one point Grumman offered them updated tomcats too I know one was f-21 super tomcat iirc but there was also another supertomcat they passed on, it I believe still had the f-14 designation. I think the 21 came later but anyways they passed on it for the same excuse they used to sell the hornets to Congress, they said even tho it shared names and a few parts that most of it was new parts so it would cost a lot to develop and produce. I really wish the sea widow would have gotten adopted tho, tbh chinas j-20 looks an awful lot like it in many ways!!
I have 1700 hours in a Rutan Defiant push pull twin engine canard. It was actually a tandem wing design where the canard carried the weight of the front engine Many early canards were not very stable if they were not a loaded canard. It was incredibly stable as long as the plane was not loaded aft of the aft cg limit.
However, Miles M52 was to become the UK supersonic experimental when it was cancelled in 1946, the All Moving Tailplane was adopted by Bell for the X-1 when they consulted with Miles about the control issues.
I believe a glider model of the M52 was tested and stats showed that it would easily have exceeded the speed of sound had the project been completed.
@@johnstirling6597 Did they convert it to remote control and prove it went supersonic? I remember some program showing it drop and accelerate.
@@aowen2471 cannot verify for certain, but either way the brits sure dropped the ball post war in terms of aircraft through a lack of vision.
@@johnstirling6597 Britain led the world in aircraft innovation and design post war ww2, it was thrown away due to globalism.
@@johnstirling6597 Yep. The 1st was the Air Minister after the war who saw all German fast jet designs had swept wings so he refused the M52 to fly as he didn't want any more test-pilots to die.
The second, was when the Air Minister (I think 1960) decided missiles were the future and cancelled all fighter programs/research - the English Electric Lightening managed to squeak through as it was so far along development.
After that, it was downhill all the way.
Good topic, nice lecture. Miles is one of the most innovative British aircraft designers. With his M 20, an emergency solution to the RAF's fighter shortage, something between a Spitfire and Typoon. Otherwise, he is known for a large series of different two-seater training and private aircraft where wing profiles and body frames could be used based on existing building components and spare parts.
The M20 took the "power egg" i.e Merlin and cowling from a Lancaster bomber and built a fighter around it. Very fast journey from drawing board to production - although it wasn't needed in the end.
@@DavidCurryFilms And it was faster than a Hurricane (though not as fast as a Spit) and much cheaper than both. Had 12 303s too.
The UK aviation and automotive industries seem to always have been a cluster. Real innovation and leaps forward got stifled at every turn.
Unfortunately there were a large number of uneducated twats in the upper echelons of power in the UK.
Some could be regarded as outright traitors...
but were a protected specie old boy....
school tie and all that eh wot.....
I had the pleasure of seeing a similar aircraft to this fly over my house a couple of years ago. I Googled to an engine aircraft with Canard Wing and found the aircraft, the Piaggio P180 Avanti II Business Aircraft . It was immensely impressive.
7:54 220 millimeter cannons in the wings. They must have been single shot at that size to keep within the weight limit.
2 x 20 MM cannons...listen slowly
Hehe..... whopping huge gun! 😆
This is what happens when the scriptwriter doesn't spell "two", instead incorrectly using numeral "2".
@@vvr881 The words spoken were "two hundred twenty millimeter cannons," not "two twenty millimeter cannons." Obviously an unrecognized typo or a misreading. Or maybe it had 200 x 20mm cannons.
@@bob_._. 2 hundred AND twenty mm cannons.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?
He said "Two hundred and twenty millimeter cannons".
THINK ABOUT IT EINSTEINS...
Millimeter cannons are unlikely to shoot anything down UNLESS there are two hundred and twenty of them.
Derrrrr...
ᴶᵉˢᵘˢ! ᵂʰᵃᵗ ᵃʳᵉ ᵗʰᵉʸ ᵗᵉᵃᶜʰᶦⁿᵍ ᵗʰᵉˢᵉ ʰᵃˡᶠʷᶦᵗˢ ᵗʰᵉˢᵉ ᵈᵃʸˢˀ
The Beech _Starship_ was a rear-wing pusher with canards in front, similarly the Boeing/Sukhoi Near Sonic Cruiser. The late Roger Tener of Beechcraft used to say, "They call then canards because you canardly see 'em." 👍🖖
There's just something about the aesthetics of planes with canards and pusher props that I love.
I saw a beech starship narrowly mis a mid air collision 😮 with a B-1b one afternoon the starship broke right sharply it was the only air plane they made that could have made the avoidance turn quick enough. That would have been a mouthful for even a B1b to swallow.
Another well-researched and presented video of a fascinating and unknown aircraft and aircraft designer. Great stuff, many thanks.
Now I can see where Burt Rutan got his inspiration for the Long EZ aircraft. Also, miles aircraft produced the M52 which was Britain's faster than sound aircraft tests. And I believe they came up with the design of the stabilator, which cured the compresability problems of transonic flight. The Americans "borrowed" the design which allowed the bell x1 to break the sound barrier.
I know there are lotta folks and trolls that say this design was total shit. The dude. On his own flew it. A true man.
Most probably the failure to win those crucial war-dept contracts was because those in positions of power within the Defence Ministry had very strong financial ties to those larger, well established manufacturing companies which already dominated the industry, and consequently weren't willing to risk existing profitable contracts!
Miles was ahead of his time. Now all our jets have engines in the rear with greater visibility over the nose for the pilots. Bravo to Miles
Thanks for shedding light on this virtually unknown but versatile aircraft.
That company was so innovative and had such forward thinking designs. By incorporating the swept wing, they would have gained so much more control and greater speeds with the right engines. They really could have sent aviation in a whole new direction and influenced how all future planes were developed if the military really funded them through the whole plane development. Great episode guys, thanks for sharing.
You should do a episode on the XF-5U. Another great idea that was never flush out.
Thanks for posting this! I think I just decided what my next scale RC model build is going to be!
IMHO that would be an outstanding build and one of a kind. Looking forward to hearing about your build!
@wilson rawlin thanks! I'm always looking for unique aircraft to model, as I'm tired of seeing the same ones done to death. I'll try to do a build vlog (for once)
Do please! I'm currently scratch building a horten h-iiie (powered version) and am enjoying all the figuring out that has to be done. The stability without a rudder scares me but hey, the build is fun!
@@citizenblue
Cool!
@@olliea6052
Fit a rocket ejected parachute...
that should take care of stability issues until you get it under control?
Great video! It's amazing how any company kept up in those days. Also through the early jet Era.
You've got to wonder how many really good designs never left the ground because someone pitched a fit over the right piece of paper not being signed, or someone not standing in the right line...
As always, excellent video. I sure wish I had history teachers with your sharpness. This looks close to the EZ canard winged aircraft of today.
They don't talk about this stuff
Always double check what he says.
@@flickingbollocks5542 i would change that to always double check what everyone says - it's a good rule for life, never an insult to the person being checked and a great way to learn.
Do a google search for the Curtiss-Wright XP-55 Ascender and you'll really see the VariEze, Long-EZ, Beech Starship. The XP-55 was in development in the US at the same time as the Miles M.35. The XP-55 would have been an excellent aircraft, but they couldn't get a powerful enough engine, so its performance was disappointing. Just like the Starship performance was disappointing...because the FAA made Beech overbuild the fuselage and it was too heavy.
@@jamesf.ryaniii7918 Excellent comment, thank you. I'm familiar with some of the designs you mentioned. I even think the Germans had a similar design? Thank you for your knowledge on this subject. You get an A+
I believe the Bell X1 used elevators as its primary pitch control, and the tailplane had a jackscrew on the leading edge of the tailplane (like a Piper Cub) as its trim control, Yeager was able to regain control of the pitch using the trim control when the shockwave attached to the elevator/tailplane gap caused the nose down pitch.
It was flown with an adjustable stabilator (see FW-190, Me-262 for examples, but there are others) first, but later an all-flying tail.
The design's only main advantage is the carrier landing aspect.
Having a wing just behind your cockpit creates a huge blindspot for enemies to approach you from behind.
And yet before modern aircraft radar we had mass produced jets in WWII with large wings midship to the aft of the craft.
@@headp3 Are you referring to the Gloster Meteor? The P-80 Shooting Star?
I hope a lot of the many Rutan-aholics have been noticing that, like in this video, Burt didn't invent (create) anything in the Canard world of design. He just refined the several concepts already created in the late 30's through late 40's. HOLD ON-- I'm only speaking of Canard designs. He did create some very interesting designs, like the Boomerang aircraft.
Just think had the Wright brothers used a canard......oh, wait.
I love that design. It's similarity to Rutan designs would make it a cool homebuilt.
I built a Rutan Long EZ, which looks quite a lot like this, god's eye view. Single rear engine pusher, though.
Gonna admit that the apparently limited footage available had you talking about a specific aircraft that did not match what was onscreen. Describing a shoulder mounted forewing, low mounted rear wing and a single engine, but the aircraft was the opposite with two engines. Kind of confusing. Good story. Needed better supporting visuals
They were also well on the way to producing the world's first supersonic jet plane in 1946 but the project was cancelled and Chuck Yeyger did it in the Bell X1 rocket plane in 1947 .
Unofficially it was the Germans tho
@@TinyBearTim that was by accident though, and the pilot also died.
@@blockstacker5614 he had 2 speed records that were unofficial because war and died in the 60s what do you mean
The Miles M-52 was designed to go 1000 miles at 1000 mph using a Nene jet engine. Test pilot Eric Brown was ready to go. Sadly the British government cancelled the project and gave the design to USA. It never flew but the Bell X-1 was a poor copy.
🤣
I'm No Expert But The Image At 1:22 Looks Like Charles Lindbergh.
Thank you very much for this piece of history. Miles' plane was certainly ahead of its time, canard and swept wings, what a genius design. We can see it's shadow in Concord and Eurofighter Typhoon. Salute to pioneers.
it would be cool to get a modern aerospace engineer review of the design.
The history of this company makes very interesting reading.
Hi. With the prototype needing three vertical stabilizers, I'd suggest this plane had problems with yaw and longitudinal stability. One engine out would make it impossible to fly in a straight line because of the short moment arm between the wing and tail. The short distance between the front and rear wings would probably cause "porpoising", and an oversensitivity to correction control input.
For any aircraft the two "biggies" for safety are stall recovery and spin recovery, and in any military aircraft, they're absolutely essential. The American Curtiss-Wright XP55 Ascender also failed on these, as did Northrop's B 49 tailless bomber. Exceptional efficiency in one thing doesn't make for good all round performance. Great experiment though. Cheers, P.R.
Interesting the name dragonfly. One of the aircraft that I owned was designed and built on the same principle, It was coincidentally named Dragonfly Mk4. it was a very fast, and efficient airplane, but it was not easy to fly.
Thank you for sharing this particular video. Greatly enjoyed it .
In my humble opinion, this is very bold, effective and a forward thinking design.
We see elements of this design in some of the modern and effective jet aircraft that are flying today.
One must respect the courage, the dedication and the grit of those who seek to pursue their dreams while desiring to revolutionize an industry.👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Looks very similar to Rutan's designs of later years...VariEZ etc.
Rutan boomerang is sick looking. Got a toy model and a freeware version in MSFS.
Rutan himself has stated the VariEZ was inspired by the SAAB Vigen.
With all due respect; looks like what I designed in grade school…
Yeah, I was disappointed to find out rutan was just a copy cat. I came out to try and work for scaled, they're just part of the military industrial complex now and don't produce anything like the rest of the politicians, but they tax your dollars like crazy! Then live in nice houses and produce halfway decent websites to fool people into thinking they're actually a company and not just front for money laundering
Closer still to the Beechcraft Starship (another Rutan design), sharing a similar twin engine layout (pusher on the Starship).
Ahhhh....what might have been.
Thank you for researching and telling us about this obscure airplane.
The griffin engined mb5 was an incredible aircraft imo...
The planform and design characteristics are virtually identical to the "Long EZ" design of Burt Rutan which confirmed the stall resistant and good harmonic control of the design. I cannot help but think Burt may have got his inspiration from the Miles Aircraft and it proved to be outstanding.
That is a very cool looking design.
As an entrepreneur n manufacturer, one have to always remember to be ambitious and practical, let this be a lesson to us for whatever new innovation we want to endeavour, if it’s a stupid idea DONT do it.
It would have been interesting to see if this design could work as a Tank buster.
Miles did propose such, IIRC
Thank you for telling this story I never had heard about.
Because it "almost" did.
It would be interesting to understand how a seaborne design was not considered by the Royal Navy. What did the Air Force have to do with it?
With today's tech, and engines, you could build a SWEET kit replica. I'd buy that.
OMG...instantly I saw where Rutan got his stuff for the EZ line of aircraft
And you were wrong - though I understand your error.
Another approach to view issues when landing could be a Short Aspect Ratio machine, as the Arup, the Vought V-173, 'Flying Pancake', it land in an steep line, rather than in a path tangent to surface.
You can see the 'Nurflugel' site.
Or you can add a camera, and a TV Screen inside cockpit.
Gesund +
220mm cannons in the wings is probably an editing issue. Try 2x 20mm next time.
glad someone has some ears...
Two 20mm cannon, not 220mm which would have made the plane too heavy to take off. Some info on the engines of the M30 would have been useful. The RAF already had a high speed bomber which had proved very successful, so would not have been interested in another which could not exceed the performance of the Mosquito.
Darned robotic narration. A human brain made they typo initially, but a human brain can figure it out better than AI.
Canards may come back in a new way..as DRONES
WITH NEW COMPOSIT materials...like fiber glass carbon
they are lightweight and don't have a high radar fingerprint...
Mr Miles was a true pioner and engineer...
Burt Rutans canards were way ahead of their time and we owe him a big THANK YOU!!
This is a great video...
Thank you...😮
These Canard configurations were finally tamed by Burt Rutan. They were loaded canards. I have built and flown both a varieze and a center line twin Defiant. The Defiant was more of a tandem wing design. All of Burt Rutan designs were not all Canards. They were a pure joy to fly. The Beechcraft Starship became a fully certified turboprop twin. It was popular but failed to be a commercial success. Very beautiful in flight.
i once saw an at6 come within a few feet of landing on top of another at6. pilot never saw the other plane the tower told him just in time and that wonderful plane just powered up and missed the lower plane by a couple feet.
Great video.
From my layman's point of view, though making it easier to land the plane on carriers, the military wasn't ready to essentially gamble on a design just to make airplanes easier to land. They might have thought "Ok, it'll make landing easier, but the designs we have today don't make it impossible. We're confident our pilots will pull it off. Let's just stick to what's proven until now."
Maybe he "sold" the design around that single feature and benefit - better visibility - and that just wasn't enough.
Odd that they can cancel a contract with no compensation to the company who put it all out there for them. It's a shame to see that kind of innovation shut down over a contract dispute, they would have been helpful during the war as designers thinking outside the box.
Governments get away with crazy things especially during wartime.
Most probably because those in positions of power within the Defence Ministry had very strong financial ties to those larger, well established manufacturing companies which already dominated the industry, and consequently weren't willing to risk existing profitable contracts!
Now called the EZ Aircraft. I do hope that there is shared love for this revolutionary design!
Looks a lot like something that Ruan would design years later.
Designers back then were a lot more gutsy than today's... first flight without even sorting out the CofG first!
Never yet met a good pilot who looked down at the runway. Most of us look toward the far end of the runway, ahead of us, to determine height above ground. Works the same for carriers - look at the forward end of the runway and at the LSO.
Yes, correct. I bounced on landing several times until another instructor came to me and said 'its like riding a bike. Look straight ahead,, and you will aways grease it on. Look down and you will be unstable in your landings."
One of the great forgotten companies. More British pilots trained for monoplane flying on Miles Magisters than any other plane, and they were still in use in my long ago youth.
By putting the engines in the wing you didn’t need a tandem wing layout to improve visibility - you already had it with a conventional layout such as with the De Havilland Sea Hornet
Except now you’re hindered out of your left and right hand sides
The Sea Hornet was a fighter, Miles was building a bomber. The point, though, was to aim for a smaller wingspan and more flexible disposition of bombs and fuel than would have been otherwise possible, depending on the relative size of the wings - some Miles designs had them much more equal in size than the M39B.
Jet engines made the view issue obsolete. Fighters still sweat bullets landing on aircraft carriers. Still these were ingenious designs and innovative at the time. Almost ironic that forward Canards are now state of the art for many modern fighters.
Imaging landing a KC-130 on the Forest Fire....
Unfortunately, it was not a stable design and grew in size to where an aircraft carrier landing was difficult as they kept extending the wings which were not foldable
I have to wonder -- did Burt Rutan know about the Libellula?
But it's a damn shame about this bird. If only some ace pilot had stood up for it the way Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron himself, stood up for the Fokker Triplane ...
Test pilot said no. Then the designer said “oh yeah?” and found out why. Lol.
I can see where Burt Rutan got his inspiration, it became a solid airframe but sadly it just wasn't in the cards for Miles.
WHY does this channel miss the important detail which should be up front. Miles was a British company but the American based channel seems to have a problem with innovation from outside the USA. ?
The forerunner of Scaled Composites?
I was thinking the same thing. Looks like something out of Rutan's mind.
SAAB Vigen has been cited by Rutan as the inspiration for the VariEZ.
@@bricefleckenstein9666 Given that the VariViggen was Rutan's first kit aircraft and it actually has the delta wing w/canard layout of the SAAB Viggen (as opposed to the high aspect ratio rear wing of the later VariEZe), as well as being literally named after it, I suspect that people might be confusing which Rutan design was inspired by the Viggen...
The VariEze design is at least another step removed, but "inspired by an earlier, less popular, design that was inspired by the Viggen" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, so I can understand the urge of reporters writing articles to conflate "Burt Rutan was inspired to start designing kit planes by the canard delta design of the Viggen" with "the VariEze is Rutan's most popular kit plane".
@@Kieselmeister Which also doesn't work right, as the Long-EZ was Burt's most popular kitplane design.
Well, the French did the exact same thing with the Rafale, I'd say! And it seems to work perfectly on their Carrier!
Same with the SAABs and the Eurofighter Typhoon.
@@wilsonrawlin8547The Eurofighter had a long history. I remember it being called "Jaeger 90" in the time the change in Germany came.
Charles Lindbergh is in the photograph with George Miles @ 1:23.
The Delta was revolutionary too
High resemblance to the Beechcraft Starship... which was designed forty years later, and prototyped by Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites company.
Yes a very good design, as it makes better use of the cabin by having the main spar aft. This would make a great GA aircraft. Also with engine near the CG it will accept a wide variety of power plants.
Grew up in a valley and there were a pair of local canard experimental planes that used to scream through, twisting through it. Heard they were a hand full to fly but my goodness they could maneuver accurately at high speeds.
Good win mate . your channel is so good me my son Watch you all the time 🇦🇺 🤘
The "Owlet" aircraft of ww2 was a strange bird...designed to help pilots adapt to the tricycle undercarriage of US medium bombers.
what a beautiful plane!
Thank you for sharing
⭐🏆🙏🇺🇲
Then along came Burt Rutan.
SAAB predated Rutan.
Incredible plane
A related concept to the tandem-wing and canard designs is the three-surface aircraft. The best-known example of this concept is the Piaggio Avanti. It has many of the same advantages as canards (including reduced total wing area, and hence reduced drag), but also avoids the limitations of elevator authority that often come along with putting the elevators on the canard, because the elevators are instead on the conventional tailplane.
5:04 Narrator: "Its was powered by a single Dehaviland gypsy inline air cooled engine." Footage: definitely has two engines
The British were the trendsetters of naval carrier operations.
People have been toying around with variations of this configuration almost as long as aircraft have been flown
If this baby the M30 really had 220mm canons in the wings, that is some serious fire power! More than a Heavy Cruiser of its era, way more than an M1 Abrams! Also, if it had a max weight of 26,750 lbs, that's about the same as a modern F-16 Fighting Falcon! Very impressive!
Dragonfly tandem wings would look really cool, actually.
Nice video ... but may I suggest you find a graphic designer to make 3D renders of the aeroplanes you're talking about !
There were several other companies that looked at this concept around the same time, I believe one was in France. It’s a canard layout with the canard wing span being close to the main wing. This layout is stable and both wings produce lift, unlike aircraft with the smaller wing in back.
Also, lol 220mm guns in the wings? That’s a really big gun. (8.5”) I suspect you meant 2@20mm cannons.
indeed, it remembers me the SAI Ambrosini S.S.4 developed in italy before the war
Would you look at that.
That name...I can tell you from experience that looks and "names" do have an impact on decision-makers. He'd have been better off calling that plane the "Sweat Bee" or the "Fruit Fly" - anything but the Libellula...
Miles Aircraft 😍😍😍
how the hell do you NOT VERIFY CG BEFORE FLIGHT??? Epic fail by that guy my god. that blew my mind.... the cg shouldve been known before a single piece was put together...then verified once fueled, loaded with whatever etc... Miles was a great designer, such an oversight as cg trips me out
Remember that on a canard configuration, the range of CG placement is very narrow compared to conventional designs...
Seriously reminds me of the Hugges P-21 Devastator from the Crimson Skies Video game
They way you say libellula is how I picture Joey from friends saying it and saying he is speaking French 😅
A pusher will always be handicapped by the possibility of a propeller strike during takeoff and landing. It gets worse with larger propellers needed for high horsepower. The idea is a tractor twin engined canard is brillant, but it will always be more expensive than a single engine. It would love to see this layout compared to a Mosquito, with the same engines.
Reminds me of what happened to Northrop Flying Wing concept at the end of World War 2. To my understanding, at the end, all prototypes were scrapped under the orders of the US Air Force. Very sad that the Miles company did not succeed.
Howdy from Temple, Texas!
@7:50 220mm cannons mounted in the wings.
You don't want to meet this guy in a dark alley.
Reminds me of the work of the Rutan brothers (Long-EZ, Starship, etc.)
To bad or lucky they were not German. Germans seemed to have a passion for strange ideas.
Bert Rutan took notes.