Silhouette challenge
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Chester UK
Age: 84
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Not a Bucker but it appears to be a Bu**er to identify. The wheels, tail and the wing are the features which distinguish this variant from the source design, of which approx 30 were built.
And to recap, not French, not Bucker or any other German and not KZ or Danish.
Oh and the undercarriage was fixed.
And to recap, not French, not Bucker or any other German and not KZ or Danish.
Oh and the undercarriage was fixed.
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Today the Government announced a series of project cancellations . The research programme which this challenge was part of was itself cancelled and aviation historians have been arguing ever since about how misguided a decision that was.
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Minehead Somerset UK
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Good evening/morning one11,
I looks like it's the Miles M3 "Gillette Falcon" (L9705). Converted from an M.3B Falcon Six and used to test a wooden model of the "razor" sharp thin wing design for the M-52 supersonic research aircraft (at low speeds!!)
That wing shape was bugging me this afternoon; it looked a dead ringer for the M-52 , but I dismissed it as being too unlikely to be related and I didn't have time to follow it up before I went home. Then I had to come back in, to do a remote support session for a customer and your latest clues prompted me to dig deeper while I was waiting for him to come online and it all fell into place.
Please declare Open House when you confirm, as I'm going home now and its going to be very busy tomorrow. Good Challenge!
I looks like it's the Miles M3 "Gillette Falcon" (L9705). Converted from an M.3B Falcon Six and used to test a wooden model of the "razor" sharp thin wing design for the M-52 supersonic research aircraft (at low speeds!!)
That wing shape was bugging me this afternoon; it looked a dead ringer for the M-52 , but I dismissed it as being too unlikely to be related and I didn't have time to follow it up before I went home. Then I had to come back in, to do a remote support session for a customer and your latest clues prompted me to dig deeper while I was waiting for him to come online and it all fell into place.
Please declare Open House when you confirm, as I'm going home now and its going to be very busy tomorrow. Good Challenge!
Last edited by SincoTC; 17th Jun 2010 at 23:05.
Join Date: Jan 2009
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Well done SincoTC - the Miles "Gillette" M-52 aerofoil test Falcon
and this explains the odd undercarriage......
Open house has been requested
and this explains the odd undercarriage......
The decision was taken to test the full size wings and tailplane of the M.52 on an existing aeroplane. Accordingly a pre-war Miles M3a Falcon Six (L9705) belonging to the Air Ministry arrived at the Miles experimental workshops at Woodley. This particular Falcon Six , powered by a 205 hp D H Gipsy Six had been used for some time previously at the RAE Farnborough for the testing of different aerofoil sections. In order to fully test the bi-convex wing the undercarriage was remodelled and fixed to the fuselage instead of the wings. This was a shortened M.38 Messenger undercarriage with the addition of cross bracing struts . Thus the highly polished knife-edge wing , of all wood construction was free from all unnecessary airflow obstructions. The cockpit was filled with instruments and extra fuel tanks making it a single seater. By the time of its first flight on August 11 1944 by Hugh Kennedy it had been popularly christened the “Gillette Falcon”
