Miles Gemini

[Gipsy Queen]

Wessex Boy,

Astonished to learn that there are any of these still flying.

I did what is now called the multi-engine rating on one in the early '50s. Like most Miles aircraft, the Gemini was quite nice to fly but it was no Twin Comanche! I can't remember all the figures but with the Cirrus Minor engines of 90hp each (some later production airframes were fitted with Gipsy Major 10's having 145hp), performance was less than electrifying and often bordered on the marginal at MTOW which was around 3000lbs.You had to keep your wits about you. Even at the time, there was a silly joke about not noticing an engine failure on take-off as 90hp was so little it wouldn't be missed. As far as I can recall, the VSI never went above 500ft/min, at least not going uphill but cruising speed was a reasonable 115kt or thereabouts and the range was exceptional for those days - over 900 miles if you could lean the mixture a bit.

With the short nose, (the integral landing light was considered rather sexy) cockpit visibility was excellent but forward vision in rain was somewhat impaired without the prop there to blow the stuff away. This left the side windows a bit obscured which was a pain as you needed to be able to see out to read the fuel gauges mounted on top of the wings. Tanks were behind the wheel well and engine; all in what at the time was a very swish, streamlined nacelle. It now looks rather quaint but was effective in reducing cabin noise which was quite low.

The main gear went up/down on an hydraulic system and it was a real feat to pump the gear up whilst maintaining a steady climb; a bit like patting your head and rubbing your tummy at the same time if you know what I mean, so you had to pay attention to the throttle friction nuts. A go-around was a nightmare! The rudders were unusually powerful and often could be used to counter an incipient ground loop without use of brakes. Oh! I could ramble on for hours . .


I you are able to wangle a ride in one, go for it! A very interesting aircraft by today's standards but I should be very wary of buying one. The wood framing with plywood covering was light and worked well in 1947 but I imagine that present maintenance costs would be stratospheric. Spares would be a nightmare, particularly in the case of the Blackburn engine and when I was tempted to take the plunge with one going cheap at Rochester in the '60s, there was some suspicion attached to the quality of horses used to make the glue . . . Fortunately, I did not buy it. But to preserve one as a non-flying exhibit would be tremendous fun.

Sadly, Miles, who had always sailed close to the wind financially, went tango uniform in the late 'forties, had an association with Handley Page and, I think, much later had some remnants to be found in the Beagle company. It was Lord Stansgate, a.k.a The Hon. Anthony Wedgwood Benn, a.k.a swinging Tony Benn who very neatly drove the last nails into the coffin of the British light aircraft industry before giving away very large sums of taxpayers money to a crook called de Lorean.

Next week, we shall take a look at the DH84 . . .

[waldopepper42]

Only ever seen one in the flesh.

T'was at Netherthorpe some 15 years ago. Performance can't have been that bad if it managed to get out of that field!

Can't remember the reg, but was covered in advertising for petrol/oil company. Can't remember which one..."Total", possibly?

The nice man who flew it treated us to some spirited low passes and wingovers when he left.

:)

[The SSK]

Takes me back to my time as a spotter at Newcastle in the early 1960s. Light aircraft visitors were just as likely to be Geminis, Proctors or Messengers as 172s or 175s. But most likely of all to be Austers.

Then they invented the Cherokee...

[Wessex Boy]

Thanks GQ!
I think there are 4 on the G register, I have seen 2 up for sale recently (around £35k)
I guessed that performance was not going to be their main strength, but they are a very, very pretty Aircraft
http://www.caa.co.uk/applicationmodules/ginfo/ginfo_photo.aspx?regmark=G-AKHP&imgname=G-AKHP001&imgtype=jpg
http://www.caa.co.uk/applicationmodules/ginfo/ginfo_photo.aspx?regmark=G-AKKB&imgname=G-AKKB002&imgtype=JPG
http://www.caa.co.uk/applicationmodules/ginfo/ginfo_photo.aspx?regmark=G-AKKH&imgname=G-AKKH002&imgtype=jpg

[Humaround]

I seem to remember 2 flying examples at the vintage rally at Kemble about 4 years ago?

[Speedbird48]

You may joke about the shortage of power, and yes I have flown them. The Gipsy version was a lot more spritely and there was a Continental powered one as well.

But, find anything newer that can carry 4 people in relative comfort on 2x90hp??

Oh, did I forget the fact that it is fairly quiet and handles well.

Shell had one for years and Douglas Bader flew it all over the place, until they got a Beech Travelair. I saw him in Gibraltar with it.

[davidatter708]

One came into leicester a while ago it is owned by the RAF chief marshall or ex chief marshall
Dave

[Sleeve Wing]

>One came into leicester a while ago it is owned by the RAF chief marshall or ex chief marshall<

AVM Sir John Allison.RAF. Believe the aircraft was/is kept at RAF Bicester. :ok:

[Foxy Loxy]

Saw one a few years back at White Waltham. What a fabulous sight! Phoned my dad straight away to tell him about it, only for him to drag out his somewhat dusty logbook to discover he'd flown one too!

He was very impressed!

Foxy

[S-Works]

We have one at Spanhoe. Very underpowered with a couple of Gypsy engines and very critical in the loss of an engine.

But a lovely old aircraft.

[Gipsy Queen]

"You may joke about the shortage of power, and yes I have flown them. The Gipsy version was a lot more spritely and there was a Continental powered one as well.

But, find anything newer that can carry 4 people in relative comfort on 2x90hp??"

Good heavens! I had no idea my little opus would generate so much interest!

I am unaware of a Continental powered variant. Was this a Woodley thing or a much later retrofit? The radial Continentals would have been too powerful so I imagine that it must have been a flat sawmill engine. I recently saw a DH114 with this type of conversion and it looked as ugly as hell. The Gemini was, by any standards, a pretty aircraft but to my mind, seemed to have an air of vulnerability. This probably is unjust and borne of lingering memories of practice engine failures after take-off. Also watching passengers like a hawk to make sure they did not step on the trailing flaps. I never flew one but I imagine the de Havilland engined types had a vastly superior performance.

The Gemini, like the Proctor, Messenger, Magister, Auster and a host of small production aircraft were very much products of their own time. Most were post-war designs or developments of wartime communications aircraft. Strangely, de Havilland did not continue their Moth series after the war. Rationing, National Service and a particularly austere post-war economy, not to mention the numbers of aircraft coming off military secondments, made life really difficult for British manufacturers. To some extent, they had a protected market in the Empire but the dissolution of this coincided with the burgeoning of American exports and with no support from successive governments, the industry just quietly slipped away to leave the field to Piper and Cessna.

And no, I know of nothing of later vintage that might be comparable (2 X 90hp) - I suppose the Apache might be a sort of contender but that was a dog to fly in comparison with the gentle, responsive and, yes, tender Gemini. But people saw things differently in those days; I mentioned the sexy landing light. The pants of a Miles Falcon or the spats of a Percival Gull were akin to the allure of a couple of straight seams on a pair of stockings . . . . . Perhaps it was just me (!) - but I have never been similarly stirred by any trans-Atlantic offering save the Beech and Lockheed twin-tails which were rather different animals anyway.

But in self defence, I should claim that my rose tinted glasses are not sufficiently strong to make the Prentice any less ugly than it was.:ugh:

[Scion]

I have as my long term project the restoration of twin 90hp Pobjoy powered Short s16 scion. At one time it was claimed to be "spritly" with 5 or 6 up and it did manage a 600 foot circuit when one engine died with only 4 up.
The aeroplane is still some time away from completion but this last year a milestone was reached with the first Pobjoy running. Prior to WW2 a total of 180 hp was considered quite a lot!
At any rate I must say I prefer the shapes and sounds of old aeroplanes.

[shortstripper]

I was impressed with the Percival Vega Gull that I first saw at a PFA rally years ago, and have seen many times since. The performance was as I recall from chatting to the owner, far superior to anything American with the same hp even then, let alone back when it was produced. All that, plus ..... It looked gorgeous!

http://www.airshows.org.uk/2006/airshows/redhill/photographs/percival_1.jpg

SS ( a confirmed vintage aircraft nut! )

[Speedbird48]

Gipsy Queen,

The prototype G-AGOS was fitted with 2 Continental C-125-2 flat 6's at one time, and it was modified by the Mikes company at Woodley. How it flew I have no idea, and have not read any pilot reports on it. It had straight exhausts so was probably quite noisy.

The Gipsy Major powered ones were quite noisy as well as they also had straight exhausts. I was involved with a Jack Ried at Elstree in fitting his with an exhaust manifold from a Magister and adding the rearmost section of a Dove exhaust to it. It was a cone shape with lots of holes to release the exhast gas. Worked well and was a lot quieter. Not sure the ARB knew too much about it??

There was a Miles M.75 Aries that was a Gemini with 155hp Cirrus Major 111's, and a couple of Gemini 3A's were converted to that standard. I believe "Flight" magazine had one of them??? They had bigger fins to give better directional control with the extra power.

"Scion", I had forgotten about the Scion with its wonderful little Pobjoys, but there was also the Miles Aerovan which initially had 90hp Cirrus engines.

Speedbird 48.

[BEagle]

2 Pobjoys? Is that all?

The Short S31 had 4 of the little things:

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a341/nw969/S31.jpg

A half scale Stirling. It was later scrapped, I understand.

[Scion]

That 1/2 scale Stirling is such a wonderful thing.
I wonder if the "Stirling Project" ever thought of that as a pre-amble to the full size machine?

[Gipsy Queen]

Shortstripper,

Thank you for the picture of what, undeniably, is a very beautiful aircraft. Oh! it's back to nylons again!!! So much better looking than the Proctor which superseded it and was seamless stockings by comparison. I have always thought that well-engineered metal-framed windscreen/cabin windows looked so much nicer than the blown Perspex ones. Puss and Leopard Moths come to mind . . The Vega Gull is a cracker.

Some years ago, I had the privilege of sitting in Jean Batten's Gull before it was restored and hoisted into the roof at Auckland Airport.

Speedbird48,

Thanks to you too for the info. I presume from the designation that the Continentals were 125hp; that seems a relatively small increase in power for what I suspect was an appreciable increase in weight given that they were six cylinders and the Cirrus Minor was pretty light.

These threads can be terrible time-wasters but such fun! I too had forgotten the Scion with it's little Pobjoy engines. There can't be many old fogeys like me who have a Monospar ST25 in their log. This also had a couple of Pobjoys which, if I remember correctly, were the 90hp "Niagara", being a souped-up version of the "R" type used in the Comper 7. I always thought their "art deco" front plates rather quaint. They were very smooth under load but the reduction gears used to chatter a bit at idle but they were unusually efficient. Forgive me if I get the figures wrong - it's been a long time - but the "R" type gave 90hp from something like 2,75 litres and the "Niagara 5" which I think was the last of the Pobjoys, produced 130hp from less than 3,5 litres. That's a lot better than today although I suspect TBOHs might be a little shorter. I always thought that leaf spring holding down the rocker covers was a clever idea.

And as one things tends to lead to another, mention of the "Aerovan" reminded me of the unbeautiful Edgar Percival "Fossicker", "Golddigger" or some such name but that was a single (Gipsy Six?).

Enough of this but thanks for the memories . . . time to get back to the C150.

[Chris Royle]

EP9 Prospector.
Saw one yesterday in the Middle wallop Museum of Army Flying

[Randomtox]

I was lucky enough to fly G-AKKH last year. Beautiful aircraft ! Very strange having the engine RPM gauges on the engines themselves - makes for a very wide scan !
Only 4 left now I believe. Three in the UK and one in New Zealand
Random

One came into leicester a while ago it is owned by the RAF chief marshall or ex chief marshall<

AVM Sir John Allison.RAF. Believe the aircraft was/is kept at RAF Bicester.

True ! Still kept there. That's G-AKKH.

[Rallye Driver]

He often flies it in to Old Warden.

The pic is from one of the evening displays.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v165/YakRider/GeminiLo.jpg

RD :ok:

[Stevemcmli]

I couldn't let this "Miles" thread pass without a plug for the Berkshire Museum of Aviation http://www.museumofberkshireaviation.co.uk/, located on what was a corner of Woodley Aerodrome. It's run by a smashing bunch of enthusiastic and knowledgeble people. A great way to while away a rainy afternoon - no shortage of those at the moment!!
Never been in a Gemini but scrounged a few flights in Messenger G-AKKC when I was lad; that was pretty wonderful.

[k12479]

"find anything newer that can carry 4 people in relative comfort on 2x90hp?"

How about an Aero 45? Similar sort of thing.

[Wessex Boy]

There is an Aero 45 hanging from the ceiling in Arrivals at Prague airport, very similar looking aircraft, I have a photo somewhere......

[skua]

But back to the Gemini: Alex Henshaw , RIP, talks in his autobiography of his immediate post-war career which involved being a salemen for the Gemini in Africa. To prove its worth he took his wife and very young son on numerous jaunts around the continent. He explains why he did not meet with much commercial success!

Great man, and hats off to anyone who keeps one in the air now.

Skua

[shortstripper]

I have the wings of a long time restoration project for an Aero 45 in my hangar. Lovely aeroplane and very good performance on two Walter Major engines - But the Gemini is so, so .... English :) (I cant help it, I'm biased)

SS

[GWYN]

For a long time James B.........m had a Gemini didn't he? I believe it was kept on a private strip somewhere near Bristol.

[aero moniker]

Four people on 2x90/100 hp. With modern construction, glues & sealants/paints, especially the faster construction techniques developed in the homebuilt/kitplane era, this would be a wonderful design to revisit. Add auto diesel conversions, and there would be most affordable multi flying. I read years ago a full stall was possible with one engine full power & the other shur down. Try that in a Twin Comanche or most other twins! There are now constant speed/feathering? props for engines this size. Didn't the cutdown canoy ,cleaned up one hit 145 or 150 kts? Sigh, so much in the triumphant 'thirties and fabulous 'forties was so delightfuly right! Now withe energy costs, commercial pressures on large areas of real estate, perhaps its time to reconsidernot just practicat, affordable aero excellence but elegance.

[Jan Olieslagers]

Only 4 left now I believe. Three in the UK and one in New ZealandThere used to be one around here, was based at EBAW. Sold to Sweden one or two years ago, ISTR.

Edit: our alther friend G found [URL=http://www.belgian-wings.be/Webpages/Navigator/Photos/Airshows/deurne_2001/deurne_stampe_fly_%20in_2001.htm] reporting <quote>Miles M.65 Gemini 1A was once owned by famous WWII pilot Raymond Lallemand, who gave it the personalised registration OO-RLD.</quote>

[Jan Olieslagers]

Too kind, Silvaire, I was there and saw her and probably have a snap too, somewhere - a neat plane indeed. Let's hope she's still flying in her new Northern home. Only my sense of chronology was shown to be poor, again:

GINFO Search Results | Aircraft Register | Safety Regulation (http://www.caa.co.uk/application.aspx?catid=60&pagetype=65&appid=1&mode=detailnosummary&fullregmark=AISD)

[Oldpilot55]

There is one at North Coates that sadly landed wheels up fairly recently. Lovely looking aircraft.

[S-Works]

That used to be ours at Spanhoe. We delivered to Sweden Barkaby a coupe of years ago to an ex racing driver. He gave me a tour of his 'small' farm in ax MASH helicopter. Took us 20 minutes to land in his garden from reaching the edge of the property!

We then proceeded to fire up his Merlin engine on a trolly in the dark. My ears are still ringing! I have a picture of the exhausts glowing in the dark.

Fun trip!

[KING6024]

I can remember Geminis at Elstree in the mid 1950s,possibly Derby Aviation,I can also remember one in a bunker at the Oxhey Golf course after a forced landing.
Colin.

[AdamFrisch]

Here's a lovely little clip of Swedish farmer Björn Esbjörnssons Miles Gemini as he flies it around his farm. He inherited it from his father (who bought it in the 50's) and has kept it flying ever since.

hhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToV62V5XaGE

[Sir George Cayley]

Absolutely fantastic looking fun! Nice music too:)

I noticed a couple of things. It seemed like he was putting in a lot of stick waggles with no perceivable effect and I couldn't help smiling at the word 'experimental' under the cockpit window. If true that's the longest experiment in aviation I've ever seen:ok:

BTW I'm told LB's Gemini now resides at Barton.

Sir George Cayley

[sunday driver]

See also 'Gemini to Joburg', by Cecil Lewis (yes, that one) published by Random House in 1984 when he was 86.
A detailed acount of his 1947 trip. Is as well written as all his better known books.

[glider12000]

I was very lucky to enjoy 2 flights in G-AKKH last year, one flight in the back seat and the other in the front.

Was great fun and a great experience.

[Retired Redcap]

Sir George,

You are indeed correct, G-AKKB is now resident at Barton. It is the only twin based there.