Talk:Miles M.52

message: It's hardly fair to remove the "anti-labour" bias. I'm a canuck who could care less for UK politics. More to the point, it is absolutely the case that the labour govornments of the immediate post-war and then late 1950's are responsible for the cancellation of the vast majority of the UK's aerospace projects. Most notable is Duncan Sandys 1957 decision to cancel _all_ manned aircraft, sparing only the TSR.2 (for a few years). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Maury Markowitz (talk • contribs) 02:59, 18 June 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: Eh?  In 1957 the Tories were in power.  Also how accurate would it be to suggest that both TSR-2 and Avro Arrow were cancelled due to US bullying of the respective governments? - User:gcarty —Preceding undated comment added 14:29, 26 June 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: At the time of the M.52's cancellation the Cold War had not yet begun and I suspect that the people involved in the cancellation simply did not see the significance of what the aeroplane was intended for. In addition, the Second World War had just ended and I suspect that many in the then-new government had simply had enough of such things and all that they stood for.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.4.57.101 (talk) 11:18, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Comments

message: "..instead of diving into the sea as planned, the model ignored radio commands and was last observed (on radar) heading out into the Atlantic."  Surely this implies that the rocket took a conscious decision to 'ignore' radio commands? A better wording might be "...the model failed to respond to radio commands.."
:I don't have a solid source on this, but my understanding from previous documentaries is slightly different - that it was commanded to perform a very sharp turn that was intended to cause it to break up. However, the airframe unexpectedly survived the turn and was last seen heading out to sea. Eftpotrm 11:06, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Subsequent work 

message: Here is a quote. It may be controversial, it still represents a valid reference source.
STACY KEACH: For 50 years, the cancellation of the M-52 has been the subject of argument and secrecy. Ben Lockspieser was the civil servant who abandoned the project. He said it was too dangerous. The reasons why he came to this decision are only now becoming clear. At the end of the war, Lockspieser accompanied a number of British and American scientists who visited a secret aircraft research laboratory near Munich in Germany. All that remains today is the blocked-up entrance. But some of Germany's most talented aircraft designers once worked here—on designs that convinced Lockspieser the M-52 would never break the sound barrier. Bzuk 03:45  7 February 2007 (UTC).
:Actually television documentaries are not reliable reference sources on anything. The actual reason for the cancellation of the Miles M.52 were made clear in "Project Cancelled" by Derek Woods. They were that Britain was utterly bankrupt post WW2 and couldn't afford the program, and Barnes Wallis convinced the Government that the research could be acrried out better and less expensively using unmanned, rocket-powered scale models.  Unfortunately, all the available research money was spend trying to get the models to work and none was left for research.  The comment about German swept wing research is purely speculative and has been deleted.
::Please note that television and motion picture documentaries are veted and go through a thorough "author and title" search conducted by not only researchers but also by legal authorities. Your "broad" statement on documentaries is simply your point of view and should be substantiated if you wish it to be taken seriously. Also, unsigned comments or comments placed under an anonymous userid do not lead credence to your arguments. Bzuk 14:45  23 April 2007 (UTC).
Bzuk 13:45  23 April 2007 (UTC).
The above is a deliberate lie and a libel. I did not remove any part of anybody elses posting.
I demand an immediate and unconditonal apology
Again I come across a post by this anonymous user calling a wikipedia author a liar. This is personal attack #2, and I'm only on the second or third link of this editor's contributions list. To make matters worse, it then goes on to make a legal comment, which is another violation of official policy. 
To this user, whoever you are: adding material to the wikipedia is important, especially if, as you claim, the existing material is wrong. However you are unlikely to convince anyone of this if you go around insulting everyone and threatening them or making demands. In this case you will likely find your additional unceremoniously removed, and your ability to edit blocks.
If you have something to add, try doing so without calling us liars simply because we disagree with you.
Maury 16:32, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: On the contrary, this is a rather different case. You and I have a specific disagreement over sources of data which I am sure we can thresh out in time. However, Bzuk accused me of deleting comments made on this page; an accusation which is completely untrue. I did delete a small section in the article and replaced it with information from "Project Cancelled" but I have deleted nothing on the discussion page nor would I consider doing so. His accusation is, therefore, false. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.37.62.194 (talk) 17:12, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well if the two cases are so completely different, how is it that your response in both cases was to start calling people liars? Really, do you think we're going successfully "thresh out in time" some sort of agreeable position after you called me a liar? No really, I'm astonished by your behavior. And then to go around demanding an apology.... where's your apology to me? Maury 18:12, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Faster than Sound

message: It is amazing the effect that a single character typographical error can have. I understand that:
The 1000 mph requirement resulted from an intercepted Enigma transmission about the Me 262 quoting its maximum speed as 1000 kph i.e. subsonic, that was typo'd or mistranslated as 1000 mph i.e. supersonic. Faced with this amazing requirement, the Miles designers realised that they would have to throw away everything they knew about aircraft design and start from scratch, beginning with information about the stability of supersonic bullets and shells, hence the pointed nose and sharp wing leadind edges. In addition to the all-moving tailplane, already mentioned, the Miles experiments included fitting the wings on a Miles trainer back-to-front to test the effect of sharp leading edges on take off and landing. 
Should this info be worked into the article? GilesW 14:08, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Wow! If you can get some external reference for this, YES, please add it. I think it's a wonderful little bit of history. Maury 22:07, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I just have found a source for the 1000kph/mph typo, see . The first speaker was a test pilot who could have flown the M.52. GilesW (talk) 13:26, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

text: That would have been Eric "Winkle" Brown  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.40.254.30 (talk) 19:02, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Origin of 1000 mph requirement 

message: I don't pretend any expertise in this, but my own bit of research turned up this page, which mentions a report by Dennis Bancroft, Chief Aerodynamicist at Miles Aircraft, theorising about the reasons for cancellation.  --Ndaisley (talk) 21:02, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: IIRC, the cancellation was influenced by the death of Geoffrey de Havilland, Jr. in the DH 108, and Ben Lockspeiser, the civil servant responsible for the cancellation, was regarded as a decent and humane man who thought that breaking the sound barrier and the M.52 project itself simply wasn't worth any further risk to a pilot's life. The war had just ended with millions dead, and IIARC, Lockspeiser said that 'he hadn't the heart to ask any pilot to fly it'.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.7.147.13 (talk) 19:01, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

text: The above statement / comment is pure speculation, and quite insulting at that.  "May be" and "seems to have been" and "probably" and ...  come on.  "Chuck Yeager's rocket stunt".  Really?  The fact is this:  The British had a partially complete prototype.  That is all that was built.  It never flew.  The program was cancelled for unknown reason(s).  We will never know why.  And no one will ever know if it could or would have broken the "sound barrier".  What we DO know is that Chuck Yeager was the first man to fly an aircraft beyond the speed of sound - and live to tell about it - in the Bell X1.  Those are facts.  They are beyond dispute, and they are not dependent on hearsay, conjecture or any other wishful thinking.  Wikipedia is not the place for speculation.  It is a place for facts that can be proven.  Could have, should have, might have been...  those terms are fine for novels.  The Miles M.52 was never built, and therefore, did not set any records.  Again, just a fact.  Thank you and Good Night. 73.6.96.168 (talk) 16:29, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reasons for Cancellation... 

message: I have rationalised the info about the Gillette Falcon, putting it into the new "testing" section.
I have edited the info to bring it (mostly) into line with info in the Don Brown Miles book (ist edition) and the Aeroplane Spotter (AS) article (both cited in the article).
My library cannot get me a copy of the Peter Amos 2nd edition of the Miles book. Is it significantly better on the M.52 than the 1st edition?
Neither of those sources support the assertion that standard wings were fitted to the Falcon back to front to test sharp leading edges, so I have omitted this. Can it be substantiated from a reliable source?
Can anyone substantiate the info about stainless steel? This contradicts the AS article, which says "high tensile steel structure covered with high-duty alloy plating" (meaning aluminium alloy). GilesW (talk) 22:55, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revision 

message: In modern terminology, I think that "|type of jet=turbojet (fitted with augmentor and afterburner)"
should read "|type of jet=turbofan with afterburner." See "Design and Development" section of article. Any comments? GilesW (talk) 23:11, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Nowadays it would technically probably be called an afterburning turbofan.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.40.250.73 (talk) 20:07, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  Looking at the sectional drawings of M.52 in the 1946 Flight article, it does not look as if a compressor stage or anything else was to be added to the basic engine, so it would not have been a turbofan. It shows air ducts from the intake past the engine to the reheat, the additional air being driven by ram effect not a compressor, making it a hybrid turbojet-ramjet - not a turbofan with reheat. GilesW (talk) 00:48, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The W.2/700 was trialled with both reheat (on a Meteor) and with an aft-ducted fan, although I don't know if the latter was flown or just run on a test-bed, presumably both trials being intended for the M.52 project.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.150.100.255 (talk) 10:10, 21 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Specification 

message: The specified climb performance 36,000 ft/1.5 mins is compatible with the rate of climb of the Me 163 rocket, but very much quicker than the Me 262 jet. Therefore it appears that the intercepted report concerned (only) the Me 163A as mentioned by Eric Brown in the Discussion video. Can anyone verify this? GilesW (talk) 22:12, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Me 163A or Me 262? 

message: In the absence of a reliable citation I propose to replace this: 
"Supersonic heating was not completely understood at the time, so the M.52 was built using stainless steel rather than the more common duraluminum." 
With something like this: 
"To provide sufficient strength the M.52 design featured a high tensile steel structure covered with high-duty aluminium alloy plating High Speed Research ".GilesW (talk) 22:45, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Construction 

message: I read somewhere (I do not know where) that a key feature of the M.52 was that its stabilator or 'flying tail' was to be power operated, so that aerodynamic forces could not be fed back to the pilot and override the pilot's control inputs as happened with conventional tails.
AFAIK this feature was incorporated into the specification of the M.52 (and thence the X-1). Has anyone access to the M.52 spec itself, or coroborating info? GilesW (talk) 17:30, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Reference found and article edited. GilesW (talk) 01:20, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: What's the page number? of the book you are using that has the information. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 02:53, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  This info is given in the M.52 chapter of Miles Aircraft since 1925 by Don Brown, on pages 274 - 276. GilesW (talk) 00:28, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

text: I still find the X-1 connection a bit dubious, as the X-1 didn't originally have a "flying tail". A trimmable stabilizer was added to the X-1 later, but this was not unique to the M.52 at that time, as US designs had them before that time. We need a reliable source that directly says that the idea for the X-1's trimmable stabilizer as a solution to the came from the M.52, otherwise its synthesis/OR. - BilCat (talk) 03:18, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  As stated by Don Brown, the power operated flying tail that could not override the pilot's control input was a key feature of the M.52 design that was used in the X-1, and that "Bell engineers and designers, at the insistence of the Ministry, had access to all the drawings, calculations and design data relating to the M.52." Elsewhere it is explained in more detail that this capability was incorporated into the X-1 structure, but at first a conventional elevator was used, with the usual loss of control at high speeds. A  Bell engineer remembered that Miles had emphasised the importance of the all moving tail during their meetings, so they reconfigured the X-1 tail sucessfully. GilesW (talk) 00:28, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'm not sure exactly when this occurred, but the XP-42 at one point was fitted with a stabilator — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.124.226.76 (talk • contribs) 06:12, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Power operated stabilator 

message: Captain Brown RN was the pilot designate for the M.52 and wrote a book, Miles M.52, Gateway To Supersonic Flight.  He makes a number of claims in his book regarding the X-1.
To wit, quote #1: The X-1 had a tailplane adjustable in incidence for trim purposes, with a conventional trailing edge elevator.
My comment:  Correct.  The specification supplied to Bell specified that the XS-1 be equipped with a movable horizontal stabilizer to provide pitch (nose up or down) control when shock waves made the elevators ineffective and spelled out also the rate of movement (one degree/second).  Captain Brown also notes the X-1 as built "incorporated none of the design features of the Miles M.52."
Quote #2: Yeager lost control when flying at Mach 0.94 ... .  Both he and the engineers thought that was the end of the road.  Magically a solution was provided by Bell almost instantaneously, in the form of a "field fix" variation of the "flying tail" encountered on the U.K. visit to Miles.  Bell's control solution was to use the pre-existing tailplane trimmer to modify the incidence of the tailplane in flight, by means of a switch in the cockpit.  Two flights after evaluating their ad hoc "flying tail," Yeager attained supersonic flight.
My comment:  Not so.  Bell did not change anything; see comment to quote #1.  Yeager has always given the project flight engineer Jack Ridley the credit with coming up with the idea to use the tailplane trim as a means of pitch control during the period when the elevator lost effectiveness.  Ridley, however, just had his finger on the pulse with respect to the papers crossing his desk, IMHO.  The ability to control pitch with stabilizer in the transonic regime was investigated by Axel T. Mattson in his paper NACA RM No. L7A03 "FORCE AND LONGITUDINAL CONTROL CHARACTERJSTICS OF A 1/16-SCALE MODEL OF THE BELL XS-1 TRANSONIC RESEARCH AIRPLANE AT HIGH MACH NUMBERS" (May 21, 1947).
Quote #3: When the X-1 ran into compressibility problems in 1947 it was rescued by fitment of the "flying tail."
Quote #4: The British aviation fraternity is firmly convinced that the Bell X-1 owed its success to what the Americans gleaned from their visit to the Miles factory in Autumn 1944, and in particular what Bell learned from the M.52's "flying tail."  Certainly, in spite of American protestations that they had their own original ideas on a "flying tail," there does not appear to be any solid evidence of its appearance on test before the X-1 ran into transonic trouble in 1947.
Quote #5: On seventh flight, after "flying tail" has been fitted to the X-1, Yeager attains controlled supersonic level flight, Mach 1.02.
Quote #6 (From the “Guild News”, June 2009): The Americans will not admit that the flying tail which was on the M.52 was what let the Bell X-1 break the sound barrier.  Chuck Yeager had run into severe compressibility trouble at Mach .94.  In fact, General Albert Boyd, head of the Flight Test Division at Wright Patterson AFB, had said, "Well, fellers, this is the end of the road."  Then three days later Bell came charging down with this all-flying tail, designed by a guy who had been to Woodley and had seen the tail on the M.52.  He'd done some work on it, but basically it was the M.52's tail, which he admitted more or less on his deathbed.  They popped it straight onto the X-1 there and then, and it did the trick.
My comment:  It's interesting how Captain Brown's narrative changes from that given in #2 to that in #6.
Yeager's flight test report following the first supersonic flight:
Date: 14 October 1947
Pilot: Capt. Charles E. Yeager
Time: 14 Minutes
9th Powered Flight
1. After normal pilot entry and the subsequent climb, the XS-1 was dropped from the B-29 at 20,000' and at 250 mph IAS.  This was slower than desired.
2. Immediately after drop, all four cylinders were turned on in rapid sequence, their operation stabilizing at the chamber and line pressures reported in the last flight.  The ensuing climb was made at .85 - .88 Mach, and, as usual, it was necessary to change the stabilizer setting to 2 degrees nose down from its pre-drop setting of 1 degree nose down.  Two cylinders were turned off between 35,000' and 40,000', but speed had increased to .92 Mach as the airplane was levelled off at 42,000'.  Incidentally, during the slight pushover at this altitude, the lox line pressure dropped perhaps 40 psi, and the resultant rich mixture caused the chamber pressures to decrease slightly.  The effect was only momentary, occurring at 0.6 Gs, and all pressures returned to normal at 1 G.
3. ln anticipation of the decrease in elevator effectiveness at speeds above .93 Mach, longitudinal control by means of the stabilizer was tried during the climb at .83, .88, and .92 Mach.  The stabilizer was moved in increments of 1/4 - 1/3 degree and proved to be very effective; also, no change in effectiveness was noticed at the different speeds.
4. At 42,000' in approximately level flight, a third cylinder was turned on.  Acceleration was rapid, and speed increased to .98 Mach.  The needle of the machmeter fluctuated at this reading momentarily, then passed off the scale.  Assuming that the off-scale reading remained linear, it is estimated that 1.05 Mach was attained at this time.  Approximately 30% of fuel and lox remained when this speed was reached and the motor was turned off.
5. While the usual light buffet and instability characteristics were encountered in the .88 - .90 Mach range and elevator effectiveness was very greatly decreased at .94 Mach, stability about all three axes was good as speed increased and elevator effectiveness was regained above .97 Mach.  As speed decreased after turning off the motor, the various phenomena occurred in reverse sequence at the usual speeds, and in addition, a slight longitudinal porpoising was noticed from .98 - .96 Mach which (was) controllable by the elevators alone.  Incidentally, the stabilizer setting was not changed from its two-degree nose-down position after trial at .92 Mach.
6. After jettisoning the remaining fuel and lox, a 1 G stall was performed at 45,000'.  The flight was concluded by the subsequent glide and a normal landing on the lake bed.
Yeager's presentation at the first XS-1 conference, 9 January 1948:
As the Mach number was increased from .87, the buffeting became more severe, and a nose down trim change was noted.  The forces were quite light, and the movement of the control column remained the best means of indicating the trim change.  At approximately .90 Mach number trim change previously mentioned reversed, and the tendency was for the nose to rise and, in the range of approximately .92 Mach number, the buffeting became quite severe.
At this point in the program it was decided from a correlation of model test data that the one degree per second actuator for the stabilizer might prove to be too slow for proper control during subsequent flights, and an interruption in the program was made to install a faster motor.  In the first flight after the new stabilizer actuator was installed, the Mach number was increased to .94.  At this point, the trim change again reversed to a nose-down tendency, but it was still easily controllable and approximately 3degree of up elevator provided level flight.  From .94 to .96. the elevators and rudder became increasingly ineffective until, at the latter figure, they could be moved throughout their range of displacement with very slight response from the aircraft.  At approximately .95, the buffeting decreased rapidly and became non existent at .96.
Up to this time a stabilizer setting of 2degree leading edge up was used in all of the high-speed test runs.  The next flight was therefore initiated to investigate the effectiveness of control by the stabilizer at the higher speeds above .96 since the setting had only been varied in climbs up to this time.  As the speed was increased on this flight, the stabilizer was changed to 1degree leading edge up and returned to 2degree leading edge up successively at .84, .88, and .95 Mach numbers.  The acceleration experienced in the cockpit was approximately the same for all speeds, and it was decided that the stabilizer was still effective, even though the elevator and rudder had lost their effectiveness.  The ailerons remained effective throughout the range.  With the stabilizer setting of 2degree, the speed was allowed to increase to approximately .98 to .99 Mach number, where elevator and rudder effectiveness were regained and the airplane seemed to smooth out to normal flying characteristics.  This development lent added confidence, and the airplane was allowed to continue to accelerate until an indication of 1.02 on the cockpit Mach meter was obtained.  At this indication, the meter momentarily stopped and then jumped to 1.06, and this hesitation was assumed to be caused by the effect of shock waves on the static source.  At this time the power units were cut and the airplane allowed to decelerate back to the subsonic flight condition.
My comment:  Of particular note is that the program was interrupted in order to install a faster trim motor, not to install a "flying tail," as insisted by Captain Brown.  The X-1 retained the stabilizer/elevator system as spelled out by Captain Brown in quote #1 throughout its life and was never modified for the supersonic flight, as a reading of Yeager's reports above confirms.
Captain Brown, in his book, calls the M.52 tail a "flying tail," and it was what would be called a "slab" today, a unitary piece with no separate stabilizer/elevator.  Here is where I feel the problem lies.  NASA and Yeager, even to this day, refer to the X-1 trimmable stabilizer and elevator setup as a, you guessed it, "flying tail."  Two contemporaneous aircraft, the D558 and the F-86A, both had the same setup as the X-1 (trimmable tailplane with elevator).  It seems to me to be a case of two countries separated by a common language.  Has Captain Brown merely misunderstood the U.S.A.'s use of terminology?  I can think of no other explanation, because the plain fact is, the X-1 tail never underwent modification from the day it was built, other than the trim motor.
It would be interesting to have interviewed Captain Brown to gain an insight into why he had the idea that the X-1 tail was modified. babraham AT netspace.net.au  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.7.51.96 (talk) 19:22, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Re Bell X-1

message: In Captain Eric Brown's book on the Miles M.52, he did make several mentions of a modified Whittle W.2/700 with high-temperature alloy turbine-blades as well as a "No.4 Augmentor" which appeared to be a type of aft-driven fan coupled to an afterburner that was either single or twin-staged.  It was stated that the design produced substantial amounts of thrust, and while thrust/drag was such that it would need a shallow dive to get through Mach 1.0 - 1.2, once up to Mach 1.3 the thrust of the engine would actually increase out of proportion with the aircraft's drag due to the effects of ram compression.  From what appeared to be the case, he stated that the aircraft would basically accelerate to destruction of either the engine, aircraft, or both if the pilot didn't throttle back (or climb).
The basic shape of the plane was based on that of a 0.50 BMG bullet, and the inlet might have initially been based on a shape that was as close to a bullet as possible instead of a pitot-type inlet: Regardless, it would have provided a substantial ram-compression effect and plans were made for a movable-spike, variable geometry air-passages in the engine or inlet duct, as well as a modified fixed-spike aimed at better pressure recovery.  Brown speculated that design probably would have settled on a fixed-spike of proper aerodynamic design if I recall.
What I am fascinated by is that while there are aircraft who's inlets produce greater thrust with speed than the drag produced at the same speed, allowing for acceleration, often the inlet shock-recovery falls off with increasing mach-number, and that usually results in reduction in net-thrust until eventually thrust/drag equal each other after a few tenths of a mach number.
I'm curious if anybody has further data or a diagram of the No.4 augmenter.  I'm mostly curious how it would compare to a gas-turbine of the 1950's or 1960's (i.e. cutaways of these engines are available)
— Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.124.226.76 (talk • contribs) 06:12, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Augmentor Fan & Inlet Performance 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: It is not "simpler" to replace the correct description of an early reheat system with some sort of 'turbofan'! Any explanation? Andy Dingley (talk) 22:55, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reheat or turbofan?