Concorde....

Created: 2nd January 2003
Britain's First Supersonic Aeroplane

Could Britain Have Been First to Fly a Supersonic Aeroplane?
During the summer of 1942 the British government decided
to embark upon an ambitious new project. The Air Ministry
and the Ministry of Aviation approached Miles Aircraft
with a secret contract for a jet engine-powered research
aircraft designed to fly at a speed greater than the
speed of sound.

Air Ministry specifications called for an aeroplane
capable of flying more than twice as fast as any existing
aircraft. At the time, no aeroplane had ever exceeded
the sound barrier though there were unconfirmed reports
of Spitfires and Mustangs going through the sound barrier
in steep dives1.

Dubbed the Miles M.52, the secret aircraft would be
designed for a speed of 1,000mph, with the ability
to climb to 36,000 feet in 1.5 minutes.

Aircraft Design

The boundaries of design and technology were being
pushed forward all the time. The wings of the M.52
were very thin and designed to remain within the V-shaped
shockwave generated by the aircraft's nose at supersonic
speeds. In the forward section of the fuselage, the
pilot sat in a pressurised pod, which could be separated
from the aircraft in the event of an emergency using
explosive bolts. However, the pilot did not have the
advantage of sitting in a modern ejector seat, meaning
that he would then have to attempt to climb out of
the tumbling capsule at close to supersonic speeds
- a near suicidal manoeuvre.

The contract for the development of an engine for the
M.52 went to the Whittle Company, headed by Frank Whittle
- the inventor of the jet engine. The resulting engine
was given the designation W2/700 and was fitted with
an afterburner2.

In 1943, Whittle's company was taken over by Rolls
Royce, which used the W2/700 as the basis for a whole
series of jet engines, including the Rolls Royce Derwent,
which went on to be fitted to the Royal Air Force's
first operational jet fighter - The Gloucester Meteor3.
Further power was to have been obtained by fitting
a specially designed ducted fan to increase the airflow
through the engine system. This is what modern turbofan
engines currently employ.

The American Connection

In 1946 a team of American engineers from Bell Aviation,
who were also working on a supersonic aircraft project,
visited the top-secret research facility of the Miles
Aircraft company. The British government instructed
the company to co-operate fully with the Americans,
in return for data on the United States' own supersonic
programme4.

It is known that the Bell company had been having serious
problems with control of their aircraft as it approached
the sound barrier. The Miles team had overcome this
snag with a completely new idea - the all-flying tailplane.


Basically, up until then, the horizontal tailplanes
of all aircraft had been fitted with small flaps on
their trailing edges to aid with vertical stability.
The all-flying tailplane did away with these flaps,
which were just not large enough to counteract the
enormous forces encountered at supersonic speeds, and
designed an aircraft where the entire horizontal tailplane
pivoted, thus giving a much greater movable surface
area with which to control the vertical pitch of the
aircraft. This was a significant breakthrough, in fact
Chuck Yeager5 is on record as saying that the single
most significant contribution to the final success
of the Bell XS-1 was the all-flying tailplane.

Project Cancelled

Within a few weeks of the American's visit, the Air
Ministry Director of Scientific Research, Sir Ben Lockspeiser,
cancelled the British supersonic project, saying:

...in view of the unknown hazards near the speed of
sound ... [it is] considered unwise to proceed with
the full-scale experiments.
Despite 90% of the design work being completed and
half of the construction finished, the project fell,
apparently due to a Treasury savings measure.

The Air Ministry ordered Miles to break up all jigs6
and to send all their design data to Bell Aviation.
As it seems likely that the M.52 would have been flying
by the summer of 1946, and since it would most likely
have achieved its specified performance, it is hard
not to believe the British government was pressured
by the Americans to cancel the M.52 project.

This allowed the US become the first 'through the barrier',
in October 1947, using the rocket-powered M.52 lookalike,
the Bell XS-1. As an added bonus, the Americans' first
jet engine, the General Electric Type 1, drew heavily
on the designs of the British jet.

Aftermath

Following the cancellation of the M.52, the government
instituted a new programme involving 'no danger to
test pilots and economy in purpose'. This was another
way of saying that it was planned to use expendable,
pilotless, rocket-propelled missiles. The Royal Aircraft
Establishment was responsible for the development of
a suitable rocket motor and in charge of aircraft design
was Barnes Wallis7 from Vickers Armstrong.

The rockets were exact 3:10 scale replicas of the M.52
and the first launch took place on 8 October, 1947.

A Mosquito light bomber took off from an RAF airfield
in Cornwall with a rocket-powered model strapped to
its belly. Sadly, the motor exploded shortly after
launch. Following this, and the success of the XS-1
the Daily Express took up the cause for the restoration
of the M.52 programme, but to no avail.

In October, 1948, a second rocket powered model was
launched. This was successful and achieved a speed
of Mach 1.5.

One interesting titbit of information, purportedly
from a member of the development team, was that at
the end of the flight, it was planned that the aircraft
would be given instructions that would send it into
an 'impossible manoeuvre', a 15G turn, thus destroying
the aircraft and letting the pieces fall back into
the sea. However, what actually happened was that on
the successful completion of the test, the 'self-destruct'
command was transmitted, but, instead of the aircraft
being destroyed by the manoeuvre, it was suddenly discovered
that the airframe was so well designed that it survived
what was thought to be impossible, and it was last
observed on radar heading serenely out over the Atlantic
Ocean.

The final irony came when even these rocket trials
were suspended, the reason being given as, 'the high
cost for little return'. The consolation from this
investment was the information that a small scale model
of the Miles M.52 had successfully broken the sound
barrier. Sadly, the United Kingdom had already lost
the chance of being the first nation to break the sound
barrier.

For a visual comparison of the two aircraft designs,
see the following pages: Bell XS-1 and Miles M.52.


Related BBC Links

See what else the BBCi archives have on Supersonic
Technology.


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1 But the wing design of these propeller-powered fighter
aircraft meant that such high speeds invariably led
to a catastrophic failure of the airframe and thus
the death of the pilot.
2 The principle behind an afterburner being simply
to pump raw fuel into the engine's exhaust, where it
is ignited, thus greatly increasing the engine's thrust.
3 Entering service in 1944, the Meteor went on to fly
for more than a dozen air forces throughout the world
was operated by the RAF up until the early 1960s. The
Brazilian Air Force flew the Meteor up until 1974.
4 Which was never received!
5 American Chuck Yeager was the first pilot of the
Bell XS-1, which was eventually to become the first
aircraft to break the sound barrier.
6 This has only happened on one other project, namely
the TSR2
7 Designer of the Wellington Bomber and the world famous
'Bouncing Bomb', as used by 617 Squadron of the RAF,
otherwise known as The Dambusters.






At 01:42 15 June 2006,
wrote:

Brian Goodspeed wrote:
Miles Aviation designed the aircraft which was re-badged
as the Bell X-1 but somehow the Americans conveniently
forget that!

Such a bizarre notion deserves to be forgotten.

My father, Stan Smith, was project engineer on the
Bell X-1. He and
another pioneer glider pilot, Bob Stanley, headed the
design team. They
were talented engineers and aerodynamacists, not 're-badgers.'
I'm
sorry to see their integrity impugned on R.A.S.