One aspect I have not seen mentioned in this thread was something I read, I think, in Derek Woods 'Project Cancelled' (not 100% sure on that).
This was that with the end of the war and the acquisition of German swept wing research the Air Ministry suddenly got cold feet and believed that Miles straight wing design was a blind alley and that, plus cost, was the combined reason for the cancellation. In an earlier post a mention is made from a Flight magazine report, of an 'alternative project using German research' which it claims 'in hindsight did not exist'.
But one did. If briefly, there was an AW designed transonic research proposal put forward with both prone pilot and conventional cockpit with a 45 degree sweep wing and T tail and I read that the creation of this design was the reason the M.52 was axed. Of course it went nowhere.
The old 'reciprocal visit' story is a curious one though as exactly the same thing happened with the DH121 and Boeing 727 in the late 1950's. Did the stories get confused or were we really daft enough to do it twice?
