Miles M.52 and the X-1 - again!

[megan]

Just emailed the managing director questioning why, or what the problem is. Let you know the result.

Edited to add: 18 minutes after my enquiry a reply from the Managing Director. His IT guy also sent an email saying, "I have checked your account on the forum and found that it was deactivated. I have enabled it and you should now be able to login again. I believe your account was de-activated by the system during a maintenance routine that identified your account as being inactive. The test message was sent by the system incorrectly after I recently moved the forum to a new server. Apologies for the inconvenience."

Certainly good service.

[skylon]

Originally Posted by Tim McLelland

Well the TSR2 is an entirely different story which I'm also having to follow at the moment in connection with another publishing project. Like the M.52, it has a lot of sentimentality and urban myth attached to it. My own view (which I'm happy to change in the light of any evidence!) is that both the M.52 and TSR2 projects were both simple victims of cost, pure and simple. I don't buy into the notion that there were any dark political reasons which caused either aircraft to be cancelled even though such reasons have been perpetuated for decades. When you look at hard facts (such as they are) you tend to get a different story to the one that gets churned out again and again. I suppose it's just a symptom of human nature that people try and make stories appear more interesting than they actually are, but I've seen no evidence to suggest that either TSR2 or the M.52 were anything other than victims of their own cost.

The Bell X-1 did not use any "stolen" brit supersonic technology. The 'Stabilator' was invented long before the M.52... its not a british invention. The general concensus among jet engine experts at the time was (and correctly so) that jet engine technology was considerably less advanced than what was needed to reach supersonic performance. When Frank Whittle's farce was uncovered, the program was discretely cancelled... end of mystery.Another of my understandings is that the M.52 needed a afterburner to get through M1 but the aeroplane was too small to carry the extra fuel. One of the reasons why the M.52 was cancelled.

Bell copying the M52 remains pure speculation without a credible support.

The complaints of an embittered engineer, Dennis Bancroft and disappointed test pilot Eric Brown holding a personnel grudge are not actual facts... especially if that engineer himself did not know what actual knowledge the US had before the transfer of the M-52 data.Aside from all the examples of earlier aircraft with "all-moving tailplanes", the Curtis XP-42 also flew with a one-piece, "all-flying" horizontal stabilizer well before any Miles M52 data ever went to the US.

The XP-42 was the 4th production P-36A, delivered in March 1939 with a number of modifications for better streamlining. It was fitted with the "all-flying" horizontal stabilizer in 1942, and used to gather data on the aerodynamics of that configuration.
The fate of the TSR2 is the funniest of all conspiracy theories, almost childish.

[megan]

Bell copying the M52 remains pure speculation without a credible support

There was no input to Bell about the M.52. I have a copy of the hand written report written by the sole American, and the only foreigner, briefed on the M.52.

[FlightlessParrot]

Originally Posted by skylon

SNIP
The general concensus among jet engine experts at the time was (and correctly so) that jet engine technology was considerably less advanced than what was needed to reach supersonic performance. When Frank Whittle's farce was uncovered, the program was discretely cancelled... end of mystery.Another of my understandings is that the M.52 needed a afterburner to get through M1 but the aeroplane was too small to carry the extra fuel. One of the reasons why the M.52 was cancelled.

I've come in a bit late, evidently, but what was "Frank Whittle's farce" and where is the uncovering recorded, please?

This is purely a straight request for information; I am conscious of a great deal of mythologising about British aviation history, mostly on the lines of "brilliant industry initiatives cut down by Government stupidity/parsimony/treason." I wonder where those myths might have originated? OTOH, whilst I as a schoolboy was fed the "Whittle invented the jet engine" over-simplification, I haven't subsequently found anything one might call a farce: so I'd like to know.

[Quemerford]

I'd recommend Volume 3 of Peter Amos' superlative work on Miles: it has a great deal of detail regarding the M.52 and its demise. And based on primary-source data, not heresay and supposition.

[skylon]

Originally Posted by FlightlessParrot

I've come in a bit late, evidently, but what was "Frank Whittle's farce" and where is the uncovering recorded, please?

This is purely a straight request for information; I am conscious of a great deal of mythologising about British aviation history, mostly on the lines of "brilliant industry initiatives cut down by Government stupidity/parsimony/treason." I wonder where those myths might have originated? OTOH, whilst I as a schoolboy was fed the "Whittle invented the jet engine" over-simplification, I haven't subsequently found anything one might call a farce: so I'd like to know.

Whittle W.B.2/700 engine was a failure... it did not produce the specified thrust required to go supersonic and never successfully completed a full power test without damage... Whittle abandonded the project and the W.B.2/700 was never completed and was canceled The UK government had no choice but to cancel the already over budget and behind schedule debacle that is now remember as the M.52 a plane that never was and certainly never flew.

Whittle was fired, forced to quietly resign in order to save what little reputation Power Jets Ltd company had left in a desperate attempt to survive the M.52 fiasco...Whittle never worked in the british aero industry ever again .

​​​​Whittle invented the jet engine is another claim without any historic or educational value.. But it made for very good propaganda in post WW2 Britain when nobody wanted to know anything about Nazi German scientific achievements, in other words the bad guys. But the myth has been debunked long time ago.
After 1980, the scientific world introduced the concept of co - inventors.
​​
We have been told that Brits broke the enigma code at Bletchley Park. The names of Jewish Polish mathematicians Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Różycki, Henryk Zygalski have been erased from the records to give Alan Turing the whole credit.

[skylon]

[QUOTE=Double Zero;4630857]Obviously the person to ask is Test Pilot Eric 'Winkle' Brown, though he is very clear in his books and lectures he reckons the M.52 was cancelled purely for political reasons ( smarming up to the U.S. ) and large parts of the design, especially the flying tail, were indeed robbed by the Americans, who then promptly refused a reciprocal visit / info' exchange.

​​​​​[/QUOTEAn interesting anecdote but unfotunately it has nothing to do with the reasons why the M.52 was a failure or the Bell X-1 a success , but his disappointment and bitterness is understandable.

[skylon]

Originally Posted by boris

As far as I recollect, the Brits were obliged to give information to the Americans as part of repayment due to the Americans for all their input into the war effort here. Having got the flying tail info, I understand that we were then frozen out by the brothers and Miles were obliged to scrap their aircraft.

If true - great!

The most ridiculous conspiracy theory ever. Have to admit it's very amusing. Bed time story for 3 year old..
The same British government has handed over the jet engine technology to Stalin.. Did they ask the Americans when they did it? Russians have copied and reverse engineered it to power the MİG 15.

[fauteuil volant]

Is this not getting just a tad tedious? I suspect that you're not, skylon, persuading anyone who hasn't already been persuaded. Now what did the Queen say in Act III, scene II of Hamlet? Oh yes, 'the lady doth protest too much, methinks'.