P038-044.Flight Test Miles.Indd 38 23/2/09 14:34:55 Time
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> FLIGHT TEST Miles ahead of its WORDS Francis Donaldon PHOTOS Nigel Hitchman The Miles Aircraft Whitney Straight took pre-war design to a new level. This stunning restoration shows just how advanced the fi rm’s designs were FRED MILES was a remarkable man everything and fl ed the country to escape the ideal primer for those destined to fl y the new of incredible energy and little respect scandal... changed his mind, came back and breed of monoplane fi ghters. for authority; his life story reads like married the (then divorced) lady. Persuading During the war, Miles’ ability to turn out something from the most fanciful of novels. a mathematician friend to coach them in prototypes in a very short time led his company The son of a Sussex laundry owner, as a the rudiments of aircraft stressing, they set into some very interesting research aircraft, young man in the 1920s he scraped together themselves up to design, and later build, a and post-war their M52 jet project might well enough money to buy an old Avro, found a fi eld world-beating range of wooden monoplanes have given ‘FG’ the credit for designing the fi rst to fl y it from near Shoreham and persuaded designed jointly by Fred (always referred to as supersonic aircraft in the world, had not the an instructor to teach him to fl y it. As soon as ‘FG’) and Blossom. government decided to cancel the contract at he had soloed, he started to train others to fl y His new wife apparently transitioned from a late stage because they thought the days of without worrying about such things as licenses drawing-room socialite to a pokey makeshift manned fl ight were coming to an end. for himself as pilot or the aeroplane. drawing offi ce over a shop in Sevenoaks with The Whitney Straight was one of the last He managed to accumulate a rag-tag nary a look back - despite the disability of of Miles’s pre-war civilian aircraft designs, collection of aircraft by buying them at scrap only having a single functioning eye. Indeed, being a typical Miles low-wing cantilever prices and patching them up, set up a fl ying the beautiful lines of many of Miles’ aircraft monoplane of all wooden construction with club and publicised it with an inaugural have been credited to the fair hand of artistic a fi xed spatted tailwheel undercarriage. Like fl ying display - only to fi nd the Director of Civil ‘Blossom’ Miles. the contemporary de Havilland Hornet Moth Aviation himself, Sir Sefton Branker, turned up By the outbreak of World War Two, Miles biplane, it featured folding wings, side-by-side to see what was going on! Aircraft of Woodley Aerodrome near Reading seating in an enclosed cockpit and a large Reading the riot act over Miles’ complete was producing a formidable range of aircraft. luggage area behind the seats accessible to the contempt for the paperwork – but not until Low-wing cantilever tourers made de crew in fl ight, rather than the tandem open after the display was safely over – Miles was Havilland’s biplanes and strutted monoplanes cockpit and external baggage locker typical of forced to put his act in order. look like something of another era – racers previous civilian club aircraft such as the Moth. He then became romantically linked with one which almost swept the board at the annual The Whitney Straight acquired its name from of his lady pupils, Maxine ‘Blossom’ Freeman- Kings Cup air race, and low-wing military the man who had proposed it to Miles, and Thomas, the wife of a peer of the realm, sold up trainers which were selected by the RAF as the who had set up a chain of aerodromes and 38 LIGHT AVIATION MARCH 2009 p038-044.flight test miles.indd 38 23/2/09 14:34:55 time... fl ying clubs throughout Britain and wanted a who continued fl ying it until 1962, when it was befi ts the immaculate condition of the more-modern, general-purpose two-seater sold to Mr RT Boyes at Newtownards. aeroplane throughout. than the biplanes popular at the time, 1935. The aircraft was loaned, still in fl ying condition, The Whitney Straight airframe is a It featured the popular Gipsy Major engine of to the Belfast Transport Museum in 1966. conventional wooden affair with a two-spar 135 horsepower and very effective fl aps, which Unfortunately, it was then allowed to deteriorate ply-covered three-piece wing and ply-covered gave it a wide speed range of 38mph to 145mph in damp storage to the point where by the end box fuselage with a curved top decking. and allowed it to operate from the small of the 1990s the once-beautiful wooden aircraft An area of the rebuild that was particularly airfi elds of the time. An unusual windscreen was a total wreck with terminal glue failure, challenging was the raked windscreen, which of forward-raked design was used, perhaps to literally falling apart at all the seams. involved fi nding a fi rm willing to mould the give the crew a perpendicular view through ‘RV was rescued from dereliction by Richard complex and deeply-drawn shape from the screen and so avoid optical distortion - in Seeley, who commissioned a complete rebuild Perspex. Eventually, the job had to be sent to any case, the jutting, beaked screen certainly by prolifi c vintage aircraft restorer Ron Souch a highly specialist fi rm in Switzerland. The adds distinction to what is already a very good- and his team of craftsmen at Aero Antiques. oleo-pneumatic undercarriage, which had to looking aircraft with shapely tapered wings, The Whitney Straight has been painstakingly be remade from scratch, was another major lovely rolled and beaten aluminium alloy recreated using almost all the original metal challenge, especially as the stock sizes of wing and tail root fairings (no fi berglass on this parts but largely new wood - not only the steel tubing used originally were no longer aircraft!) and rakish fi n and rudder. ply skinning, but perfect new spars, ribs and available, so the tubes had to be machined and Of 50 Whitney Straights built before the onset longerons. It recently emerged from Ron’s ground specially from oversize stock. of the war, the subject of this article – G-AERV – workshops at Durley near Southampton, The aircraft has been rebuilt with the original is the only one its kind currently airworthy and setting a new standard for Miles aircraft Gipsy Major 1F engine, but with electric start and is remarkable for the small number of owners it rebuilds which would be very hard to better. generator added. A Fairey-Reed propeller from a has had during its 70-year life. ‘RV has been set off by a lustrous silver and Chipmunk has been fi tted, because the original Mr WH Moore bought it new from Miles in blue paint job by Airtime at Hurn, the same type of Fairey-Reed propeller installed during 1937, and operated it in the UK pre-war. It was scheme as it had when it fi rst emerged from the rebuild was found to be too coarse and gave impressed in June 1941 and used by the RAF at the factory at Woodley in 1937 – except that the inadequate take-off performance on the initial Abingdon, then returned to Mr Moore in 1947, quality of the fi nish is breathtaking, as post-rebuild test fl ight. ➽ MARCH 2009 LIGHT AVIATION 39 p038-044.flight test miles.indd 39 23/2/09 14:35:15 > FLIGHT TEST e ‘Entry to and exit from the aircraft is via a single upward-sliding door on the left-hand side of the cockpit, reached by a conventional wing The aircraft has been rebuilt FLIGHT TEST incorporating modern hydraulic What follows is extracted from the disc brakes operated by dual LAA fl ight test report, which was toe-brake pedals, rather based on fl ight tests carried out than the original Bendix by Jeremy Cooke and myself from mechanical system linked to Turweston, where the aircraft has the rudder pedals. With the been based for most of the post- new arrangements, the original rebuild fl ight testing. The initial mechanical parking brake lever fl ights were carried out by Ron on the left cockpit sidewall has Souch from an airstrip ‘somewhere been connected to a hydraulic in Hampshire’. park brake valve so as to retain its Entry to and exit from the aircraft An Aeronca it most certainly is not! original function. is via a single upward-sliding door The all-new fuselage at Ron Souch’s The original pneumatic fl ap on the left-hand side of the cockpit, workshop. Note beaten aluminium system components were reached by a conventional wing wing route fairing. corroded beyond redemption, so walkway accessed from the trailing the aircraft has been rebuilt with edge of the wing. Stepping across to a modern electrical irreversible jack replacing the right-hand seat requires a certain amount fi ttings, so that the adjustment buckles were the pneumatics. Conventional split fl aps are of bodily contortion, and it helps if the spring- brought out from in between the seats. fi tted plus a drag fl ap, hinged along its rear edge type elevator trimmer is fi rst placed in the fully Full dual controls are fi tted and everything is under the belly of the fuselage. nose-down position, which moves the control easily reached apart from the fuel cock, which An unusual feature of the design is that the columns forward out of the way of your legs.