I stand corrected on the prone Meteor, should have looked up Don Middleton's 'Test Flying - the History of British aircraft testing, 1903 - 84' which remains unsurpassed for me, I remember the Meteor job was indeed concerned with 'G', though presumably Eric 'Winkle' Brown would have been in that position, among several other unenviable ones!
There is a programme repeated quite often on 'Sky' T.V. where he ruefully recounts how Miles gave the U.S. all their info' including the all-moving tail, then the Americans clamped up tight and no gen' came back the other way.
Then again we were daft enough to give jet engine designs to the Russians...
The original X-1 had a conventional elevator equipped tail, but someone with some foresight had included the option of an all-flying job; after early problems, it seemed worth trying the latter...
As for Thunderbird 1, I've just checked, and it's quoted as approaching Heathrow at 'only' 7,500 MPH though may have been slowing down ( not knots, though radio procedure in the series was surprisingly good, no ' over & out ' nonsense we still get in modern productions !
Maybe the seperate lift motor ( don't know what Mr.Farley would think of that ! ) was driven by a shaft from the main engine - there's no counting some people's ideas...
Whoever did those designs certainly had some aircraft knowledge - the Fireflash SST seems to show a hint of Barnes Wallace, while my dad took the 'P' out of TB2 with it's forward swept wings for years until I gleefully pointed to the X-29.
Back to the M.52, I know 'Winkle' is game for anything, ( I'd love to see some of the T.P's I worked with if asked to land a Sea Vampire wheels up on a floating rubber mat ! ) but I wonder if it was a good thing it was cancelled, or we'd have been minus one Test Pilot !