Tandem Wing Aircraft Were Almost A Thing In WWII | Miles M.35/39 Libellula [Aircraft Overview #83]
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- Опубликовано: 23 дек 2022
- M.35 & M.39 Models by the wonderful Mark Rowles, check him out here - www.cgtrader.c...
Today we're taking a look at the 'Libellula' aircraft made by Miles Aircraft, specifically the M.35 and the M.39B. These tandem-wing designs were an attempt to reinvent the template for military aircraft, though they ultimately didn't succeed.
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The Hangar Team :
Rex - Aviation enthusiast for 25+ years, obsessive collector of books, compiler of research, and narrator.
Alexandros - Co-Writer/Research assistant and preserver of Rex's sanity.
Franch - Editing guru, makes Adobe seem "fun".
Sources:
Brown.D.L (1970) Miles Aircraft Since 1925. Putnam & Company London.
Dangerfield, R. E. (1946). The Aeroplane: Incorporating Aeronautical Engineering. Bowling Green London.
Brinkworth, B. J. (2016) On the aerodynamics of the Miles Libellula tande2m-wing aircraft concept, 1941 - 1947. Waterlooville, Hants, UK. 
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Please forgive my average animation skills, I am still learning :)
F.A.Q Section
Q: Do you take aircraft requests?
A: I have a list of aircraft I plan to cover, but feel free to add to it with suggestions:)
Q: Why do you use imperial measurements for some videos, and metric for others?
A: I do this based on country of manufacture. Imperial measurements for Britain and the U.S, metric for the rest of the world, but I include text in my videos that convert it for both.
Q: Will you include video footage in your videos, or just photos?
A: Video footage is very expensive to licence, if I can find footage in the public domain I will try to use it, but a lot of it is hoarded by licencing studies (British Pathe, Periscope films etc). In the future I may be able to afford clips :)
Q: Why do you sometimes feature images/screenshots from flight simulators?
A: Sometimes there are not a lot of photos available for certain aircraft, so I substitute this with digital images that are as accurate as possible.
What about the old speed record racing planes of the 1920s and early 30s? Love what you do!
The hangar looks fine if you are using blender, I'd recommend using Cycles to render so it gets raytraced with shadows and all and looking into how to set up the camera like a real one, that's something people often forget, can make things look a lot more "realistic" like it was actually filmed.
Thanks for a dragonfly. (Thats mi iconic flycraft)
They look great, Mustard vibes. Grade A content as usual!
this airplane doesn't have 4 wings.
if a Tandem Wing = it has 2 wings
if a Forward Canard = it has 1 wing
Burt Rutans design of the Quickie is among the more modern tandem winged planes that I know of. Fun to learn of even earlier design prototypes.
And the tractor propeller solved a lot of issues, but the landing gear was a probelm which Cozy avoided!
I think the quickie was a later design of his, too. But now I wonder about his influences in the design of many of his early planes. The Vari-EZE (his second plans-built) really looks a lot like the miles planes, not to mention the Ascender.
The Westland Lysander Delanne tandem wing variant deserves a mention too.
@@RichardBetel His first was the Vari-Ezy, inspired by the SAAB Viggen fighter. For a long while Rutan argued that canards were best, and now he thinks otherwise. The noisiest aircraft around is the Italian looker Piaggio Avanti, the beyond doubt noisiest propeller aircraft in use. And that is natural with some air accelerated by the powerful propellers to over the speed of sound, like when you bang with a hammer on an anvil.
You want to have propellers out of the turbulence, like on the later designs of Miles, and you want a conventional tail for manouvering, but a canard that takes care of trim-changes is excellent, and that is how the Avanti is designed, and the SAAB Viggen only missed the conventional tail!
@@ErikssonTord_2 Rutan's first design was the Vari Viggen, not the VariEze.
Neat, I've never even heard of these prototypes and that's exactly the sort of thing I appreciate about yours and similar channels. Bringing attention to something obscure and interesting.
I heard of the second one but never in this much detail
And ideas for the war thunder team!
The Miles company designed and started the build of a jet powered aircraft that would take off, break the sound barrier and land on its own retractable undercarriage. Under lend-lease the drawings and information were sent across the Atlantic. A similar looking aircraft the Bell X1 appeared but with a rocket motor that went on to break the sound barrier.
Meanwhile back in the uk the Miles aircraft was cancelled but a scale model was taken up by a Mosquito dropped, it flew, broke the sound barrier and flew off into the vastness of the Atlantic.
@@JohnSmith-bx8zb The Miles M.52 never existed, it is pure British fiction
@@WilhelmKarsten it did exist in drawing and prototype form. Moreover a test model was flown, once again a sour yank tries to mislead the reader.
Hi dude - great to see my planes being used in your video - you did them proud. Looking forward to future projects....Mark
I'm looking forward to featuring more of your amazing models in the future!! :D :D :D
I'm so glad you did this because the only channels that had info on these kinds of aircraft before now were those A.I. generated 'dark' aviation channels with their many strange bits of misinformation.
Yeah, I seem to need to block another one of those every other week.
I noticed that , wtf
wait Dark skies has misinfo?
@@Justin_0241 sometimes. Yeah. Check the comments for corrections.
@@Bearthedancingman tbh Rex did had a decent job of putting a small history of these obscure but sometimes unique aicraft even if it is a prototype and i think his take on XNLB-1 is semi-accurate
I've always liked these designs, a great example of unconventional but perfectly logical thinking. I'll definitely be looking forward to the longer video, I bet I'll learn a lot from it.
Lots of good ideas in the design, but with the Mosquito already in production & the Canberra nearly set to go it had no place.
Thank you Rex for talking about one of my favourite weird aircraft of the war! I never knew there were further versions of the Libellula from the M39 onwards so I'm very much looking forward to that video. :)
It was not 'a weird aircraft of the War' - it was just built 'during' WWII.
These appear as if they could have been the inspiration for some of the aircraft designs that Gerry Anderson et al came up with for "Thunderbirds"
As I am a WW2 aircrafts enthusiast, I love how often you could bring up some planes out of the forgotten dust.
Really cheers mate, your work is absolutely awesome.
Hope you can continue as is.
Best wishes and happy Christmas.
Mike.
I thought they were ON something. But then it was WW2 Britain, so the only options were strong tea and macaroons.
He has truly become... the Drachnifel of the Skies.
You just need to look at Burt Rutan's aircraft to see that Miles were onto something.
If it was that good, it would be the norm, not one offs.
Thank you for this video. And how about making one for the Miles Messenger?
Produced to meet an Army requirement for an air observation post. Then the MAP threw all their toys out of the pram because Miles hadn't gone through them. So the Army weren't allowed to have it! However the type was used later by the RAF who bought 21. A total of 93 were produced 1942-48, including exports to 9 countries. It had huge rear-wing flaps which gave it the very low stall speed of 25mph! (cf Fieseler Storch stalling speed 31mph.) The engine was a Gypsy Major. Lord Tedder and Monty each had one.
Around 1980 I happened to have a chat with a gentleman, who was building an RC-model of the M.39, and had phoned George Miles about details, including C.G. The C.G. had Miles said, and after a lengthy pause, the C.G, no, I have no idea where the C.G. was, or where it should have been. But he was very helpful with other details.
"Preference for Litho-braking..." 😂🤣 That was pretty good.
Tandem wings are real cool
... oh I love these. Weird aircraft like this are just so much fun to explore!
It behaved exceptionally well. except for the part between taxiing to take off and being back on the ground.
But I really enjoyed the looks of the B variant. Nice one. Can't wait for your deep dive video. Especially to learn about the thing that looks like the Lancs weird cousin :D
We have one of the 2 airworthy instances of the Lancaster at an aviation museum near my home, it flies over several times during each summer and every time I still run out to see it in flight. I’d go for a flight myself but you have to be a platinum member and the cost is in the thousands of dollars Canadian (for an hour) to be at that level. I can only imagine how amazing it would have been to see hundreds taking off from airfields in England at the outset of Market Garden.
Litho-braking superb word, made my day and will be used at every available opportunity on flight failures, thank you!
I suspect the M35 was the inspiration for the main aircraft in the Crimson Skies video game. What I am very curious about, though, is how this design would fare if you slapped a jet engine on it.
I imagine Burt Rutan took inspiration from these designs, and took it to a whole new level. Happy holidays to all!
Thanks. I’ve been waiting over twenty years for a decent video of these two aircraft.👍
Can't help but watch this and think of three things:
1. Rutan
2. COIN
3. Drone tech
Just goes to show how rare truly original ideas are
Me, too. it seems like it would have excellent loiter and slow-speed characteristics.
I was brought up on many immediately-post-war photographic books and the Libellula was described in one of them. I have always admired the Miles team and became deeply interested in their innovations culminating in the harsh dealings by officialdom of their M 52 supersonic jet (to be piloted by Capt. Brown). I remember the 1947 adverts for the Miles pen company (the biro) into which The company had rapidly morphed. (Officialdom also 'took down' Frank Whittle's Power Jets company, desiring their own National Gas Turbine stablishment).
Officialdom's treatment of Frank Whittle was an absoloute disgrace. I suppose going up against vested interests like RR and showing them that their entire piston engine production was obsolete, didn't help matters.
Nice to see Miles getting love. Reading is the town of my birth so I've allways known about them but it seems not meny people do, tho that would be very different if our government had let the M 52 fly instead of selling out to the Americans 🤬
P.s. Merry Christmas 🎅 🎄
My father worked for Miles at Shoreham Airport in the '60s. He was scathing about how Miles technology was exploited (some would say stolen) ranging from the M52 to the Aerovan.
Miles produced various design in the '40s, of which the M35 & M35 were but two. They also produced an "emergency fighter" the M20 which performed nearly as well as the Hurricane IIB despite having a fixed undercarriage.
Would have worked well with early jet engines. Two at the back of the fuselage side by side. Short inlet and exhaust helping to reduce thrust losses. Also an engine out would not have effected asymmetric thrust.
Thank you for sharing your excellent research and presentation. Subjects such as this one help me understand all the ideas that were being explored.
I noted your oblique reference to the Miles Messenger, and how Miles went around 'channels', to the point the project was almost cancelled. Thanks for the video, and that amazing footage. Excellent research.
Miles flew from Woodley Aerodrome not actuallyReading , just outside. Originally Miles did have a design office in Reading, in Donnington Road. The Miles factory building is still in Woodley but is now an automotive factory. Please see the great book Wings Over Woodley for the full history of the Miles Aircraft Company.
Always impressed with the work you do, Rex. Thanks.
AMAZINGNES!!! Love unconventional and new thinking crafts. Cant wait for more!
Kelly Johnson's 1939 L133 supersonic fighter design had a similar design with a much smaller canard replacing the front wing. As a design it was well ahead of it's time but I doubt that there was a powerplant with enough thrust to exceed Mach I until the early 1950s.
Thanks, I would have never known of these special aircraft, except seeing your video. I will definitely watch the follow up video you mentioned.
Miles came up with some beautiful ideas. I would like to have flown them.
Man, I wish these aircraft’s received more attention
Always loved the Miles designs. They, even if unconventional, are pleasing to the eye in proportion and shaping.
Can't wait for the longer video on the entire company!🥤😮🍿
And, it's notable that several modern jet fighters have effectively revised the concept. The Saab Viggen was an early example, followed by the Saab Gripen. Likewise, the Dassault Rafale and Eurofighter Typhoon have adopted, in effect, the same aerodynamic layout. I suspect aviation enthusiasts could provide a substantial list of such aircraft, apart from the four I've mentioned. :)
The Viggen works much the same as the Miles designs, while the Gripen, Rafale and Typhoon are more like the XP-55. The failure of the XP-55 could maybe have been prevented if they had a more advanced control system.
Woww! Animation! This channel is getting better and better!
Ah, Miles aircraft! Always a treat!
only ever seen old black an white pics of these grand dad had ,good to see some footage of em thanks
This is the sort of thing that makes me wish there was something as easy to use as Sprocket that could generate aircraft to fly in X-Plane.
SimplePlanes can go decently far ideally :)
@@bigmanjaffers X-Plane is a better flight sim. Things in Simple Planes fly like RC planes. But the builder in X-Plane is pretty serious stuff more than it is fun.
Excellent as always. The period footage was enjoyable, specially seeing the test pilot land and jump out of the plane wearing a suit and tie. No hi-tech flight suits and fancy helmets back then,
just another day at the office.
Miles aircraft also worked on Britain's attempt to break the sound barrier. That would be an excellent subject for a video.
Not sure if the proposed engine could break the sound barrier in level flight, but otherwise it was a sound design. Better than the DH Swallow anyway.
@@papalegba6796 The M52 was more than capable of breaking the sound barrier.
Engine and airframe development was cancelled and the technology handed to the USA in the guise of the Bell Aircraft Corporation. Thus it went the same way as the swing wing technology which the UK government abandoned with the US government picking up Barnes Wallis's theories for nothing.
The Miles M.52 scandal was one of the most shameful and humiliating chapters in British aviation history...
Miles Aircraft was charged by the Crown with 24 counts of fraud and embezzlement, Frank Whittle was removed from Power Jets Ltd and discharged from the RAF amid allegations of extortion and dereliction of duty.
Ministry auditors raided Miles Aircraft and found nothing but incomplete drawings and a partially built wood model of the cockpit layout, nearly all of the funds hadbeen stolen by Miles Aircraft and Frank Whittle.
@@grahamepigney8565 Unfortunately that is completely false, no aircraft powered by a obsolete centrifugal compressor turbojet has ever reached Mach 1 in sustained level flight, the are simply too inefficient for supersonic flight.
That myth was started by Dennis Bancroft but it's a lie, there is absolutely no evidence to support that any data was given to or taken by Bell Aircraft... it's pure wishful thinking.
@@WilhelmKarsten Hello sandyboy, I see your bitter little wehraboo heart still burns with rage at the trashing your nazi dreamboys got. Anyway sandyboy will you be backng up your claim that Whittle was discharged from the RAF and will you be providing any evidence for the existence of the charges that you refer to?
Don't worry, I know that you won't because as we know you are a *LIAR*
Merry Christmas, and thank you for bringing up the more unusual designs of WW2. I look forward to more! We'll done!
This presentation and animation really brings the limited documentation available to life! Really well done.
Thank you for pointing out the name 'Libellula' was taken from a dragonfly - otherwise I'd have spent the rest of my life thinking someone had named an aircraft after a part of a lady's anatomy!
That part of a lady's anatomy that best describes the Air Ministry I presume. In plural obviously. Preceded by "what a bunch of unimaginative..."
Well It does have two sets of flaps...
we still see the occasional tandem wing designs today, thought they rarely go beyond testing. The tandem wing also shows up in designs for "quad tilt rotors" where the tandem wing allows for the rotors to be placed at the 4 corners of the aircraft such as in the Curtiss-Wright X-19
Thank you and, Merry Christmas.
As the Aussies say it was a 4 wing banger that hopped like a Joey
I love that word lithobraking makes; me chuckle every time. lol
Always loved the Miles planes - cant wait for the upcoming videos ! 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧
This channel is in my opinon is a very interesting, fact filled, historic, and very accurate description of the evolution of aircraft. This paticular video is perfect for those interested in building their very own flying model of an canard type of airframe. Awesome information Rex ! Looking forward to your next video
One can only imagine what a Blackburn tandem wing would look like…
Two sets of wings, two turrets?
I can’t really, other than it would be fugly.
I just love the term "lithobraking"
Some of these "lost" tech are making a come back. Modern combat drones are utilizing tandem wings and even VTOL interceptor concepts like with the XFY-1 Pogo and Triebflugel.
Love the 3D work! Especially the simulated flight mid video.
Those kind of projects are visually awesome! Thank you. I tried to make a pun with miles, but il failed in the most abject way.
These projects were miles ahead of the competition!
@@builder396 i thumbed up, but i am vexed!😅
Thanks for this video, I find it really interesting to hear / see some of the designs of aircraft (and other vehicles etc) that didn’t come to fruition. In particular this was a clever way to try to make the planes fit in the carrier, while attempting to minimize the compromises of doing so. Looking forward to seeing the deeper dive episode!
This pair of aircraft were never 'tandem wing' which explains why the CG location was misunderstood. These are relatively straightforward canard aircraft where valuable lessons were learned.
Among which the rigging of the CG, the placement of a canard higher than the mainplane, and the use of flaps.
The CG if improperly rigged forward as in an emulated tandem, makes the aircraft too responsive to the canard, and with the mainplane in the wake of the canard the flying qualities would be difficult to understand. Once the CG was moved aft, the aircraft behave more normally and more predictably. Even better as on M-39 when the canard was moved below the mainplane, the downwash would no longer interfere with the wing by creating a flow with a negative airstream angle, and all those negative effects would evaporate.
Neither of these aircraft would be suitable for carrier operations however, as canards usually demonstrate very poor short field performance unless very light, which warplanes are not known to do.
Good comment, thanks.
Pretty birb. ^^
I'd love to see a twin-turboprop version of the second prototype, it could make a good compact and cost-efficient CAS fighter/trainer.
Oh Miles.. would you like the wings in the front or back? YES.
'Litho-braking' that is a classic
I want to know more about that heavily-modified Lysander(?) mentioned near the start!
8:10 note the additional central fin added for lateral stability. The M35 did not have it.
Although ultimately cancelled, I am impressed by the 6,000 pound bomb load of the Miles M.39.
"If at first you don't succeed, try again. Then quit. No sense making a damned fool of yourself."
W.C. Fields
I wonder how they solved stability problems (which were main fault of XP-55 and all similar planes). Normal airplane's center of mass is situated within tight limits of wing lift force and then far behind tail pushes down to balance weight and lift. When nose goes down, tail gets even more downforce, if nose goes up, tail can get some lift - in both cases returning plane back to straight flight automatically. But tandem wings are exactly what they are called - wings, they both have to produce lift. XP-55 front stabilizer in fact also should be considered wing. And plane can't balance itself this way, any change in pitch suddenly results in more force pushing in the same way. Pilot can keep plane straight with constant corrections, but that is extremely exhausting and will make it impossible to fly without good visual points of reference. Modern planes use that scheme for various benefits, but they have electronic systems that keep correcting flight without pilot even noticing. But in 40s those systems would be impossible to make.
An early Christmas present! Thanks!
Fascinating!
I like the animation. If there is a deficiency of real images, I think it adds to the video.
Oh I am excited for the deep dive.
WO! Count me in on the not knowin thing! And the Lyssie too! Be nice if one of the Miles had wound up at 'Shuttleworths' Thanks m8 another goodie!
I would actually love to be able to see the designs and blue prints for the b variant. It looks like such a nice plane and if I could build an RC one possibly as a 3-D print model It would be fun to see you what modifications to the design could be practical for today. Like, maybe you tilting the motors, or at least the props as they seem to sit around where are you would want the center of gravity, and thus center of lift for VTOL
These would be great model subjects.
Thanks for this . . . I could see the influence of miles on aircraft in hayao miyazaki / studio ghibli anime / manga .
M.39 is very cool looking.
Yes! I've seen these a few times before, always wanted to know more! Thanks!!!!!
Hi. Thanks for this video, great old footage. I've made many flying model aircraft, canards and tandems, hoping that having two wings supplying lift rather than one would make for a more efficient plane. None were complete failures, but only one produced the desired results. It thermalled beautifully, rising up like a bird on the wing, and I never saw it again. So much balsa, so few results. Back to the drawing board---. Cheers, P.R.
M39 has a very cool look, could be used in ultralight...
Nice video, and great to see some Miles stuff. It has always been a disappointment to me that, another one, the Miles Student never made it into production.
Beautiful planes. Excellent video!
Excellent.
Sort of reminds me of the Piaggio p.180 Avanti, though instead of large wing style canards its got smaller ones, but also has a T tail.
Great models
Wow, I saw that Lysander inspiration instantly! Such a strange shape!
The heavily modified Westland Lysander with duel wings and rear turret was only a one off prototype no more were built
Thought the Lysander and a Lancaster had crashed and some bloke called Earwig botched it up in his garage.
With my limited knowledge of wing airflow, I have to wonder if it would have done better had the forward wing been on the bottom and the rear wing on the top. That front wing would have been dumping its downward airflow directly onto the rear wing's upper airflow.
...Oh, looks like that happened with the bomber prototype. And indeed it sounds like it did a LOT better.
Excellent again, Thanks Rex ...
I love Miles Aircraft 😍😍😍
These feel like advanced Wright Flyers.
Loved those Miles planes always wanted to model them. Hmm, retirement job?
I cant wait for the deep dive ^^
My favorite weird plane is the InterWar Bell YFM1 Aircuda, which is a rarer American pusher plane.
Very safe stall characteristics, if designed properly.
HUH, I've never heard of these before. would be a fun project to remake them in X-plane to get a sense of what flying one was like.
Monoplane: one wing
Biplane: two wings
Triplane: three wings
Tandem Wing: two or more wings (very rare/uncommon, can't think of any with more than 3)
Forward canard: monoplane with the tail out front
The aircraft in question have at MOST 2 wings (tandem/canard). I consider this aircraft to be a Canard due to the much smaller size of the forward wing to the main wing, making this a Monoplane with ONE WING.
Great vid Rex, a shame the tandem wing concept never caught on during WWII.
Never heard of these planes but the concept of an aircraft with two alternating blades is covered in James Herbert’s “Dune”, a sci-fi treatment of an alien but human oriented future where these are called thopters. Much closer to the original idea of the dragon fly concept.
No doubt inspired by the real life Ornithopter, the French Riout 102T Alerion
It's was constructed and wind tunnel tested in 1937.
Thanks
This design would've been perfect for CAS. It's not a coincidence how much it resembles the A-10 Warthog.
Nice work m8!
Again great vid also these designs like the M39 and the Keys dev look like they were lifted up from Crimson Skies especially how the M39 reminds me of the peacemaker and the Lysander reminds me of the Briganed