The Miles Libellula - a New Basic Design
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- Опубликовано: 1 май 2020
- A c.1942 6-minute black-and-white silent film of the prototype Miles M.35 Libellula designed by George Miles, beginning with the origins of the design in 1941 which also includes the first flight and second flights M.39B U-0244 on July 22, 1943, by George H. Miles and Flight Lieutenant H. V. Kennedy and the aircraft being taxied and in-flight and concludes with an artist's impression of a proposed bomber variant.
The Royal Aeronautical Society has received the permissions for sharing these videos by Karen Pratt, George Miles’ daughter, and Jeremy Miles, F. G. Miles’ and ‘Blossom’ Miles’ son. For use of videos for non-commercial purposes credit the Royal Aeronautical Society with the respective individuals. For commercial use and for further information on each videos copyright, contact: nal@aerosociety.com
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That looks like a very handy aircraft. Add a couple of Merlin's and 4x20mm cannon in the nose and she could have been a terrific interceptor and long-range air-superiority/escort fighter.
Proper British testing. "Flight suit?". "No, I'll just take my jacket off."
Lol!! And I thought I was the only one who noticed that.
I wouldn't expect anything from Mr GH Miles other than a suit and tie for the first flight.
"You can't fly like that sir! ...Here, your tie is crooked."
I'm getting old but my memory flash backs seem to recall a couple of guys trying a canard a while back in 03 ........once heard they made pretty good bicycles.........Capt. Mike.....SAT
I have long admir'd the Miles company for their beautiful and innovative designs. Such a shame they were 'done the dirty' by the British govt. over the M.52 supersonic jet ( to be flown by Capt. E Browne) and ended up trying to market Biro pens.
The Miles M 22 looks good/noteworthy, only let down is the wing (drag, radar sig.)
Miles proved the wing in full scale because they needed to know it would fly at low speeds. They also invented the all flying tail. The M52 would have taken the speed of sound well before before USA bodges it with air dropped rocket power.
the ever innovative Miles quickly found the high wing canard was the wrong way around, as its higher coefficient of lift (CL) meant considerable downwash was applied to the mainplane adversely affecting its angle of attack and resulting take-off and landing performance. That and the tricycle gear was better suited to sealed runways than grass fields more common at the time. Eventually later types proved efficient from the point of view of wider centre of gravity margins but there was less percentage of disposable load and an overall CLmax of 1.15, 2.0 for the canard and 1.0 for the mainplane.
Crashing flying fleas prove it as well,oh those frenchmen.
Tricycle gear works just fine on grass airfields - They're incredibly commmonplace.
The trick is, if the field's soggy, once you have enough speed to keep the nose lifted give the stick a sharp jerk back to unstick the front wheel as early as you can in the take-off run.
Once you have the feel for that its not onerous.
@@ronaldharris6569 yes, but because the aerodynamic principles were misunderstood. The canard has to be rigged so that it stalls first, then the aircraft will dip the nose and enough airspeed will be resumed so that the aircraft can recover. It was a valuable if however costly lesson
@@Farweasel I think there were 3 sealed airports in Europe at the beginning of WW2. One important difference tricycle carriage meant that speed got you off naturally instead of lifting the tail to fly, and you would essentially fly back on to the run way to land. Taildraggers flared down which meant losing sight of the strip on contact, unless like P51 pilots who had a whole circuit of aircraft to get down quickly, you would land on the mains and essentially fly fast taxi to the other end and allow everyone behind you to get in before the wrecks came in to land. But they had nice wide main gear
@@z_actual That got me thinking 'I wonder if that canard setup would cause the fron wheel to drop back'?.... Although I doubt it would with most weight on the main wheels still.
They should have been aware of the wisdom of having the canard stall first 'though ~ Henry Farman had that sussed by 1909.
I’m embarrassed to say I had to look up what Libellula actually meant......Dragonfly.
I still wondering how to pronounce it.
@@huw3851 *Very* carefully I should think.
Failing that just rhyme it with the 1950's song Be Bop a Lula
(But you have to get the rythm right)
@@huw3851 my guess is 'lee-BEL-loo-la'
Perhaps used because DeHavilland had already used Dragonfly...?
@@carmium & "Damselfly" just doesn't have that sufficiently martial ring to it! X-D
I wonder if Burt Rutan ever saw this !
was thinking the same
Surely not!! Other way round i suspect!!!
@@johnwood1948 Burt Rutan was about 5 weeks old when the M.39B first flew. That would make him quite a prodigy if the Miles was based on Rutan's work.
@@MrTerrymiff
I thought three exclamation marks would be enough to indicate my real thoughts Terry!
@@johnwood1948 I thought that my pedantry would be enough to indicate that I'm a stuffy old fogey!!!
What i find quite amazing is how within a span of 6 years, all of a sudden, 4 different nations try to build something that is roooughly the same. J7W Shinden is the latecomer in 1945, Xp-55 Ascender in 1943, the M.35 in 1942 and the Ambrosini SS.4 in 1939. Although it would seem most likely that it is the earlier SS.2 from 1935 that might be the inspiration for all of the later?
Except there seems to be no direct connections between them? And all of them were developed in different ways and for different reasons, which quite frankly makes it kinda hilarious that 4 aircraft could pop up so close in time, so similar, yet with no clear connection.
Reminds me of a VeriViggen, precursor of the Veri Eze and Long Eze. Rutan really made it work.
Could this be the inspiration for many Burt Rutan designs, especially the beechcraft starship?
probably not since there were similar designs at that time in america too probably somewhere else and maybe before this one too
Rutan's designs look more like the Curtiss XP-55 Ascender, AKA "Ass Ender."
Love the music!
Could you imagine if this, the Kyushu Shinden, Curtiss-Wright Ascender, and Dornier Do-335 had been developed?
The Do335 was developed. There were several versions of it.....
Do-335 was developed and flown in limited capacities
All I could think about was the song "those magnificent in their flying machines"
Classic movie.
@@robertcampbell6349 here's an interesting snippet that you may enjoy. George Miles, the designer of the Libellula, hand built 3 copies of the Bristol Boxkite for the movie 'Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines
@@milesmcquillen1885 Miles. Thank you for sharing that.
An interesting canard design. I'll have to find out more. Would be interesting to read of the pilots' comments. It prompts two points from me... I wonder what it would have been like had it been fitted with two jet engines as later used in the Gloster Meteor... It's design resembles a number of ultra-light aircraft designs of recent years.
The Miles brothers were great innovators and the M52 should have exceeded Mach 1 with Winkle Brown but the Labour Government
scrubbed it and the TSR2
Showing your bias there. Remember Attlee's government were after the atomic bombe and the means to deploy it, whilst setting up the NHS and the rest of the welfare state (at least we can afford to get I'll and see a Doctor). As for the TSR2, as advanced as it was it had some severe limitations. On a hi-lo-hi profile from Laarbruck it could barely get to Poland's border with the Soviet Union, whilst an F-111, which had been designed to meet the same general requirement, flying the same profile with the same payload could reach into the Soviet Union as far as Leningrad from RAF Lakenheath. The problem for the TSR2 was that the economic golden age that the Conservatives had created between 1952 and 1964 was merely smoke and mirrors. The 1964 trade deficit, run up before the General Election was double what had been expected £800million instead of £400million.
@@neiloflongbeck5705 The TSR2 would have ruined the UK, or close to it. Aircraft projects notoriously over-run in costs and time.
@@cicero2 I think that's going a bit far. I doubt that it would have ruined the country by itself; a government can always raise taxes or cut other spending. If we had pressed ahead and it had failed and an aircraft the UK would have list its aircraft industry much sooner. If the aircraft was seen to be sound, but the avionics had failed to perform as inte led then the avionics industry would have be in danger of collapsing. Or both if neither side worked as intended. But in all cases the country would have survived.
Perhaps if we had stopped sending "Aid" to all the Countries that wanted full Independence ! But hey look at all the nice Palaces & Swiss Bank accounts that provided..
@@andyb.1026 We sent them fuck all but took a lot away with us wrapped in a Union flag.
Some american called Bert Rootan or such like, made an aircraft similar to this in the 60's/70's and claimed it as his own. I wonder what engines that second prototype had, it certainly seemed to have loads of Giddy up, from the position of the exhausts I am guessing something De Haviland but I could only see 4 exhaust pipes. I am so impressed with the work done by Miles if only our government had shown them more respect at the time, all those aviation records they/Britain would have set with a little official support.
This old skydiver just wonders how the hell you get out of that thing in an emergency!
Yup vari viggen,burt said the canard mounted in line or lower than the main wing was the key to success
An interesting concept, carnard winged airplanes can have very good flightcharacteristics. .
They are to long and straight.It looks like, they shorten the
Wings and give them the Carnads, wich makes it a Biplane.
Not a real flying Wing,one with substitute Carnards.
It may be more aerodynamic on the Fuel consumption,
but its not a Fighter or a Bomber,more a reconnaissance plane.If you make hard Steering with it,the Wings may
broke off.
I certainly hope they had something on which to brew their tea, on the prototype?
when i match these up to the new canard fighters, they kinda look alike. but the width of that plane and 2 long wings, I want to know how was it's roll rate?
These planes look futuristic in 2021
That wing layout makes me think this would have been effective at high altitude recon, and maybe as a bomber if it could be scaled up enough. But as a naval fighter? I don't think so.
Test flying wearing a collar and tie, how very British - ! 😁
The modern couterpart of this aircraft could be the Eurofighter Typhoon! It has the same basic layout. Incredible!
Was that at Woodley aerodrome?
super
interesting that they mentioned gas turbines as a posible power plant
If only...... the Brits have clearly demonstrated their capacity to be innovative with their aviation inventions, perhaps starting with the invention of the jet engine, the movable tail plane, the fist jet passenger plane and so forth and yet they allowed other countries to implement them and developed them further. As for their government’s support? Without being too negative...lack of balls fits the bill.
The politicians are interested in quick profits through trade or position, they have never understood British technical and scientific innovators and only turn to them when they need to be be ‘got out of a fix’, (circumstances like a war they are entirely unequipped for, or even a pandemic that they cannot understand because they cannot argue with a virus).
You are right. Many Genius Inventors were thwarted by dim, short sighted Government. Whittle being the worst example. He could have shortened WW II if fully supported.
@@danieljames2015 how about Barnes Wallace!
My dad (who in post war life) was a doctor & medical researcher was instrumental in getting him an honorary degree.
You might ask why?
Well my Dad spent WW2 developing and putting into production the high explosives which made Barnes Wallace’s bombs work.
Those explosives? Early British research results caused the deaths of several people (some were literally vaporised), the Italians made the stuff in crystalline form and blew up not just the munitions factory but the neighbouring town, a British ‘gate guardian’ Grand Slam was found to still contain its explosives, this scared the s**t out of the authorities because a scientist told them what it could do if it was struck by lightning or something!
@@pcka12 Yes, one of many Geniuses that didn't get the support or recognition they deserved. Held back by pigmy greasy pole climbers more focused on their own future. Alan Turing was another amazing mind, disgustingly treated after he literally helped shorten the War. All that generation including your Father are to be revered.
@@danieljames2015 I think you might include my dad amongst those!
Orphan brought up by grandparents as a result of WW1, won a scholarship 1938/9, returned to Uni autumn 1945 and after failing first year emerged with distinction in all but one subject, he had to fight his way up every inch of the way past the bureaucrats.
I see this as the forerunner of the (OV-10?) Bronco and the P-38 Lightning.
except this came after the P38
A few nations experimented with the basic design, problems with handling that increased as more powerful engines were installed.
Wow, two jet engines on that and they would have a great fighter
I wouldn't have fancied my chances in a bale out scenario............it has an amazing similarity to the far more modern Rutan designs...
I wonder if it would have been possible to step onto the left canard, and then pitch forward and downwards off it
@@pashakdescilly7517 Hardly, not at speeds over 100+ mph!!!
@@Brian-om2hh I think you are right on that. The Lightning P38 put the rudders behind the engines, and made a direct rearwards bail-out rather safer. These issues resulted in development of ejector seats
Nice aircraft, you can read about it on Wikipedia.
M.35.....Swept wings, thrust at the rear of the aircraft, tricycle landing gear, and canards. Qualifies as futuristic
Add a Cannon be a great tank buster, plenty of visibility, any idea of the airdrome, might it be Lasham.
That is old Woodley aerodrome.
@@maiwanda Thank for that, thought it was my old gliding field
@@johnpotter4750 I used to live in Woodley and as a kid wI was always out on woodley aerodrome by the old Miles aircraft factory. All gone now under a housing estate sadly....
@@maiwanda Nice to hear from you, passed by Brooklands airfield many, and a mentor worked on tornado bomb bays, Brooklands Tech college for me was across the railway, 2km away NNE is Fairoaks. 73's
sorta looks like the a-10 wart hog's great great granddaddy.... bet it was thought of by the a-10's design team...
Were they testing designs that would later suit the newly developing jet engines without mentioning it publicly?
Anyone know why it was not developed further?
Budget cuts.
I would have thought they would have an amazing aircraft if they had fitted it with jet engines
6 weeks from finished blueprint to flying prototype....??!! Wow...takes builders 6 years just to decide where to build something now.
Someone says "Hey, I have an idea no one ever tried. We will control the aircraft pitch from the front by putting the elevator ahead of the wing."
Me, "So like the Wright flyer?"
Him 😗
Regarding the Libellula. If the pilot has to bail out, which propeller do you think he should jump into???
Where’s the sound. ?
No sound?
Gotta love test pilots in tweed suits sporting pipes very very manly
One major flaw. If you ever had to bail out of that thing you'd be minced by the propellers.
I just made such a comment then saw yours.... I even used the word minced myself lol.
L’ancêtre du Jaguar à la vue des trains d'atterrissage !?
I guess the Vari EZ didn't originate with Burt Rutan.
Libelle is the German word for dragon fly. Is "Libellula" latin?
or was this a bomber version?
Imagine trying to bail out of that kite... you might get minced up by the props.
You don't bail out, you take the canard and the cockpit with you like a glider.
Thank you for not hiring a Foley to dub a bunch of incorrect sounds over this video ruining it for all time.
With all those square yards of flat vertical surfaces, the radar signature on that thing would be incredibly huge. Cute though.
If the first design had a Merlin they might have had something
Didn‘t Miles make any usable planes?
Indeed they did, the M9, M19, M24 & M27 Master, M14 Magister, M25 Martinet to name but a few. Those three types alone ran to well over 5500 machines.
Ja Boing 737 Max dohh!
Confirmed kill on a German spy bird at 5:44!
Lmfao!!!😆😅😂
The wing on the front would have made a good missile platform.
Are you a Boing janitor??
@@ianshiell3597 are you a dumb ass troll piece of shit?
an I thought Burt Rutan was the first one...
Wilbur and Orville started out with a canard design, too.
No sound
So...what became of the design? Was it not fast enough, like all the other canard designs of the early 40’s?
i suppose end of war happened...
Woodley Aerodrome?
Yes Iwas there.!
Definitely a British design...looks like something Monty Python would fly.
“Design and development” the great British oxymoron........thus precluding all production. Think about all those potentials which never eventuated due to: you work it out?!
Perhaps, but in this case, it made sense. They never wanted to produce this. They just wanted to have the option if they needed it. A country in desperate need of resources cannot afford to waste them on small production runs of planes that they don't need.
Is this video silent ?
No
Have you tried turning up the volume?
@@erikarneberg11 like everything i do in life to 11 geting sound on everything else
@@Foxbat320 HA HA! Good response- sorry, I was just teasing you. There’s no audio for this video, or any of the others I’ve seen from “The Royal Aeronautical History Thingy” so far… And while I will agree that it would be nice to have some additional information/data/context provided by a narrative, (making an assumption that that’s what you’d like as well- but perhaps some throbbing techno-beat is what you prefer?) the silence is a refreshing change from some of the irritating computer-generated voice-overs or questionable musical selections that accompany far too many RUclips videos… I hope you’re well, and at least I can assure you that you aren’t deaf, and there’s no technical issues with your… errr… equipment?
@@erikarneberg11 Possibly 16mm gun camera film. Used it a lot in the late fifties, made a fixture to cut it in half to be used in my 8mm Bell and Howell.
Beach starship 1.0
What happens when you bale out ... Right into the prop's?
need ejection seat...
Nothing is lost: the offal is retained by the fin on crashing against it.......
It would have been suicide if you had to bail out of this thing. You'd be shredded by the prop!😟😲🥴
You'd need an ejector seat like that in the SAAB 21 pusher-propeller fighter developed in Sweden.
You just inverted deddhedd - sorry minced ddehdded!
did the americans steal the libby aswell like the miles supersonic one theycopied for the supersonic one yager flew ???cas the libby looks like that interceptor prototype they were flyin ,???lol.
No. There are only a finite number of aircraft configurations. The Wright Flyer had a similar configuration, but the reasoning the Wrights used was different.
Surprisingly, the Americans came over to look at the Miles M52, went back home incorporated many of the technical features of the M52 but used rocket engines instead of the jet engines the M52 was going to use. The government then cancelled the M52 for whatever reason, I believe the Americans leant on our weedy government. Many years later at some university here the M52 design was tested and would have broken the sound barrier. The design was absolutely brilliant as well as being quite beautiful.
@@claudebylion9932 The major takeaway was the flying tail; the one last thing Bell couldn't shake out was elevator blanking on it's conventional tail due to compressibility. That tail was the only thing Bell really needed....
@@claudebylion9932 better money in america a lot of our designers went there cas like you say our frig heads didnt want to push boundaries gave money to the hoity toity wat ran everything not to our aircraft .
Too bad the airplane was being developed faster than the camera !
This was a great design and with two Rolls-Royce Merlin 45 V-12 and some fine tuning it would have made a great aircraft ! But, with the Spitfires and Mosquitos already in the sky this aircraft was doomed and the name Libellula didn't help and Dragonfly was
Ah, british humor.
and there is no sound at all kinda disappointing.
Not a heavy fighter, not an interceptor, not a multi-functional aircraft, not a night fighter. Dead end engineering.
Why? Explain?
Nonsence
@@wobblybobengland What did this airframe do that wasn't already being done with lower operating per hour costs and less expensive to actually build for deployment?
It killed you because it was not in one of your neat folders!!
@@ianshiell3597 It didn't kill anyone on the op for.
What did they expect to accomplish with this POS? The design caused blind spots all over the aircraft and especially to the rear. It would have never survived in combat...
It was a first stab at a very short take-off aircraft for carrier use, with the forthcoming escort carriers in mind. Bear in mind that this was designed and built in six weeks in early 1942, when the US still hadn't got it's war effort into gear and anything which might give us an edge in the Battle of the Atlantic was worth investigating. If this aircraft had been able to force u-boats down with a couple of depth charges, as the Swordfish did later, it would have been worth the effort.
There were no planes that did survive kombutt - some did not survive training! You sound like a girl who has had multiples in several combat zones with famously undownable hard-ons like Mitchells, Lancs, P-38s, P51s, B-17s, Heinkels , Sturmoviks......all designated to survive combat. The A-10 would be a flying Koffin if it were combatting anything heavier than an AK-47 with a beard up her nose!! Go back to Bettysburgh!
This is an unwatchable video.
Copying German WW2 designs doesn't make anybody original, and this is just another example of that.
Are you thinking of the Arsenal-Delanne? Actually French, captured but never developed.
The Miles designs predated the German ones. 1941 ring a bell?
@@allangibson2408 Point out Northrop's early 1930's flying wing work and the luftwaffles start smoking out of their ears. God forbid anyone tell them about the Westland-Hill Pterodactyl....
Odd for WW2 German designers to name the standout feature of such an aircraft...."Duck", in French. Wonder why that is... oh, could it be the Brazilian designer that used this layout in 1906 in such a manner that it looked like a duck's head stretched out in flight? Or maybe the follow-on work by Bleriot and Voisin.
Who's "copying" who, exactly?
Be careful of your comments and do your research first. The ideas you think were copied from the Germans go all the way back to the beginning of flight. Indeed if you don't have to look beyond the Wright Flyer and Wright Glider (1902) to see where the ideas for this wing configuration comes from come from. Every so often a variant is produced as a new design but theres nothing really new except for the interpretation of the ideas.