Talk:Miles M.52

Bell and Miles

There is no evidence that Bell used Miles powered tail. As a matter of fact Lockheed and other US companies had filed numerous patents had patents on moving tails powered tails dating back to the early forty. Please also keep in mind that the wright brother had a movable tail. This whole page is nothing more than a POV.. The M.52 never flew. 8 models and only 3 were successful. I suggest you go to you tube and listen to Gen Yeager described how they solved the problem. I can also tell you it wasn't Mr Miles models.. Also the comments about the USA not sharing the technology, might be true, but please also add to this page the WHY.... Britain had some major spy defections latde 40 early 50's and they had just sold Jet technology to the USSR.... Klimov VK-1 version of the British Nene jet engine, this design became the mass-produced MiG-15, which first flew on December 31, 1948, Jacob805 19:54, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

FYI the Cold War had not yet started when Britain sold the Rolls-Royce Derwent and Rolls-Royce Nene to the Soviet Union and what Britain did with their technology was none of the US' business. BTW, the British also sold the Nene to the US where it was produced by P&W as the "J42".

What the RAE and Miles did was to prove that the powered all-moving tail was the solution to the control problem at, and around, Mach 1.

Prior to this time there were no supersonic wind tunnels outside Germany and so the only way to gain data on high speed flight was to fly a full-size aeroplane as fast as one could. The RAE had an advantage in having the Spitfire, which could be controlled safely in dives up to Mach 0.89, far faster than any other aeroplane flying.

That's not entirely true, there were various small supersonic tunnels developed but problems usually persisted in being able to determine data downstream of the shockwave (they'd bounce off the walls) and invalidate everything downstream. These devices were used to measure the aerodynamics of bodies of revolution. This was even used for testing the Miles M.52. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.124.226.76 (talk • contribs) 06:12, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

FYI, the fastest speed recorded in a dive for a Spitfire was 609 mph, faster than any of the first generation straight-wing jets. Table of data for Spitfire RAE high speed dives in which a TAS of 606 mph, and Mach M = 0.891 was measured, in Report No. Aero 1906 here: [1] The dive angle was 46.2 degrees at this speed. 609 mph TAS was reached slightly after this at 25,520 ft, albeit at a lower Mach number - M = 0.880.

A powered all-moving tail was also flown on a modified Spitfire.

It was dived to Mach 0.92 by S/Ldr. Tony Martindale. Interestingly, there was one flight in 1952 where a Spitfire PR.XIX clocked Mach 0.94 (presumably without a stabilator) during atmospheric testing that went awry as the pilot was flying at very high altitude and got a stall warning and pitched over, at which point the aircraft was kept in the dive a little too long (no idea how fast it would accelerate in such thin air) and it soon was in trans-sonic effects and once the pilot realized it, he started frantically trying to pull out and succeeded fortunately. After everything was done, they analyzed the data, as well as the atmospheric data and confirmed Mach 0.94. For a plane built in WWII, it might very well have had the highest dive speed (though supposedly an Me-262 managed to go supersonic in 1945)

Oh, BTW, the Soviets copied the Derwent and Nene without UK permission. One of the conditions by which the UK supplied the engines to the Soviets was that the Soviets not copy them. The Soviets went back on that agreement.

I don't quite know why the all-moving tail is spoken-of in relation to the Bell X-1, as mentioned above the aircraft actually had a trimm-able conventional tailplane operated by an electric screw jack. The all-moving tail was however later used in US aircraft such as the F-86G and F-100 and others before UK aircraft such as the Swift and Hunter had them, the English Electric P.1 design of 1949-1950 however had one before all of the others.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.150.18.150 (talk) 11:21, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

In my opinion, the majority of this article is based on the memories and recollections of one man who wrote a book. This man, a captain Brown I believe, is not a reliable source for an entire article without some 3rd party confirmation - since he was quite obviously an interested party in this Miles vs Bell / X1 controversy. I am doubtful of many of the claims as currently written in this article, and I would like to see an independent reviewer who has expertise in this subject go over this article and do some real fact-checking. Far too much sole-source anecdotal story telling here. 73.6.96.168 (talk) 16:43, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Eric Brown is rather more than "some man who wrote a book2 Maybe he does have skin in the game but he is a reliable primary source.TheLongTone (talk) 15:40, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

On Miles M.52 maybe, definitely not on Bell X-1 development. Angel-0A (talk) 17:18, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Reheat or turbofan?

It is not "simpler" to replace the correct description of an early reheat system with some sort of 'turbofan'! Any explanation? Andy Dingley (talk) 22:55, 23 November 2023 (UTC)