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By: - 28th November 2005 at 19:48 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Essentially what you say is the gist of the story - at least, the version that is common currency here in the UK. All moving tailplanes had been used on aircraft before - after all, the Wright Brother used an all moving plane to control pitch on their Flyers. However, I'm pretty sure Miles were the first to propose using it on an aircraft designed for supersonic flight. What would need to be done is a serch of the Bell archives to dind their drawings of their all-moving tailplane design and see if it predates their visit to Miles - or even whther it bears any relationship to the Miles concept.
By: - 28th November 2005 at 19:58 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
In "Aces Wild" (the race for Mach 1) by Al Blackburn, the adjustable stabiliser feature is discussed on pages 9 to 13 inclusive.
It dates the first adjustable tailplane incidence control to 1929, and claims invention by Clarence Gilbert Taylor, who installed the device on his own Taylor B-2 Chummy. The hand crank and control lines were then fitted to the Taylor (later Piper) Cub.
The book goes on to say that North American engineers had independently arrived at the same solution for the XP-86 Sabre, although the similar control fitted to the X-1 was viewed by its designers as a ground adjustable device, not to be employed in flight. Jack Ridley apparently convinced Chuck Yeager that it could be used as an auxiliary pitch mechanism while in flight.
Finally, there is no mention of Miles or the M.52 in that book at all!
On the other hand, Phillip, I remember reading somewhere else that the Americans had "borrowed" the idea after seeing the M.52.
By: - 28th November 2005 at 21:20 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Ah, the old 'Miles lost out on the moving tailplane' tale.
What about 'Miles lost out on the first practical photocopier' or 'Miles lost out on the big Biro opportunity'?;)
Flood
By: - 28th November 2005 at 21:29 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
i saw footage on a clarkson show of a miles magister with a moving tailplane done in about 1943?
By: - 28th November 2005 at 21:29 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
To be honest Flood - I sometimes feel the same way about these British aircraft industry "hard done by" stories. British aviation enthusiasts are sometimes very begrudging to the achievements of the US aircraft industry.
If anyone serves flak over British aviation industry missing out on opportunities it's British politicians - who consistently dashed the prize out of British manufacurers' hands just when it was within reach.
By: - 28th November 2005 at 23:14 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_M.52
Says it all really. I think the begrudging of acheivement is more from the western side of the Atlantic.
By: - 29th November 2005 at 07:18 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Well, does it say it all?
It basically says what everyone tends to say, especially in the UK.
The mystery element to all this is to what extent Bell relied on Miles data. NOTHING has ever been published stating categorically that Bell made use of the Miles work. That's what I would like to see resolved for once and for all.
The other mystery element is the reason given by the UK Air Ministry for the cancellation of the project. I do not really think that safety of the pilot was the real issue. My theory is that pressure was exerted on Britain by Washington to cease work on the project. Britain did not come out of the deal empty handed however. Has anyone ever considered that there might be a link between Britain's withdrawl from early supersonic research and their apparent sudden acquisition of information on the construction of atomic weapons?
By: - 29th November 2005 at 08:20 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
I dont think the all moving tail was a new invention by any means. As mentioned above, I have seen it on early American designs for trimming, and it is used on a number of German designs from the war. For example, both the FW190 and the Me262 have electrically operated all trimming tailplanes. I am certain that there was a lot of copying of German design features in post war aircraft, on both sides of the iron curtain.
Bruce
By: - 29th November 2005 at 08:37 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
I dont think the all moving tail was a new invention by any means. As mentioned above, I have seen it on early American designs for trimming, and it is used on a number of German designs from the war. For example, both the FW190 and the Me262 have electrically operated all trimming tailplanes. I am certain that there was a lot of copying of German design features in post war aircraft, on both sides of the iron curtain.Bruce
Using a moveable tailplane for trimming was nothing new- the Lysander for example used such a system. The flying tail however was a different system and was a new idea.
By: - 29th November 2005 at 08:39 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Well, does it say it all?It basically says what everyone tends to say, especially in the UK.
The mystery element to all this is to what extent Bell relied on Miles data. NOTHING has ever been published stating categorically that Bell made use of the Miles work. That's what I would like to see resolved for once and for all.
Having just been reading the Fairey FD2 database in AI, its interesting to note that there it is said that the Miles data added little to the Bell programme, other than the flying tail. It goes on to say that the British Government, having cancelled the Miles project then realised in 1948 how transonic research elsewhere was putting the UK into a trailing position and so pushed the Fairey research.
A major part of the Miles decision was money. The new labour government in 1946 had many things on its mind and aviation research could be seen as a luxury. As the cold war began to hot up, the need to keep in the forefront of research lead to a reappraisal.
By: - 29th November 2005 at 09:17 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
I'm sure I remember reading an account of the early flights of the X-1 by Chuck Yeager. According to this account, the aircraft was first flown without the all-flying tail and was nigh-on uncontrollable. It was only then that the all moving surfaces were 'jury rigged' to the aircraft and this enabled Yeager to break the sound barrier in a shallow dive while retaining control.
If this is the case, it bears out the idea that the all-flying tail was not part of the existing design of the X-1, and makes it look like the research came from elsewhere. In fact the account made it sound like the all flying tail was a last throw of the dice to see if the X-1 could be controlled at all in transonic conditions.
Obviously I can't point to this account (does it sound familiar to anyone else?) and it certainly doesn't say that the research came from Miles. However it does seem like it wasn't taken seriously until serious stability issues had come to light after the aircraft had already been flown. Could it be that after the initial problems, Bell engineers went looking through the Miles research for leads to a solution?
By: - 29th November 2005 at 09:33 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
The all flying tail was already used on the Fokker E.III.
By: - 29th November 2005 at 09:42 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Having seen a lecture by Captain Eric 'winkle' Brown I was left in no doubt that a) the Miles M52 would have been first through the sound barrier had the project not been shelved and b) the flying tail was taken from the Miles project to be used on the X1.
Captain Brown was 'pencilled in' to be the pilot of that aircraft and does know what he is talking about.
As mentioned on 'In Search for Speed' on Sunday he also repeated the flight in the DH108 in which Geoffrey de Havilland was killed - the DH108 went into a series of violent pitch movements and it was only the fact that Eric Brown is short that allowed his head to be restrained by the back of the seat. GDH was a few inches taller and so his head was subject to a 'whiplash' which unfortunately broke his neck.
By: - 29th November 2005 at 10:19 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Well, does it say it all?...apparent sudden acquisition of information on the construction of atomic weapons?
What acquisition? Thanks to the McMahon Act (I think) despite our input to the Manhattan Project we were completely frozen out of research and had to develop our A and H bombs alone.
From a quick google it was 1958 before the USA started sharing nuclear information with us again.
By: - 29th November 2005 at 13:05 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Is that really true? Did Britain have enough atomic information available to it in the late 1940s to enable it to develop a fission bomb purely on the data it held alone?
Or had it acquired enough data during the Manhattan Project to allow it to go it alone when (and if) America locked the Brits out?
I am genuinely curious about this as the full story of Britain's involvement in the US atomic and hydrogen bomb projects is still not well known.
By: - 29th November 2005 at 13:34 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
A major part of the Miles decision was money. The new labour government in 1946 had many things on its mind and aviation research could be seen as a luxury. As the cold war began to hot up, the need to keep in the forefront of research lead to a reappraisal.
Also I believe Frank Whittle left Power Jets at a critical stage in the programme - it was quite possibly felt that without Whittle, the programme would not work. Certainly, cancellation came only days after Whittle had left Power Jets. I think two airframes were nearing completion and the cost of going ahead with manned flights was arguably a lot less than the subsequent unmanned, radio controlled, rocket powered programme. (It was estimated at the time that completion would cost £250,000 - costs up to that point had been around £73,000, while the unmanned programme cost £500,000).
However, this programme proved the effectiveness of the M52 layout. One source I've read says the rocket powered model flew in October 1947, one month before the X-1 broke Mach 1. The RAE report on these trials was dated 1950.
The official reason for the cancellation was cost. (source: Mike Hirst, article based on lecture given to Royal Aeronautical Soc)
By: - 29th November 2005 at 15:07 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
I don't know enough about atomic development to be certain of details but the following should be somewhere near right.
Somwhere around the beginning of the war, British scientists with assistance from European colleagues realised that an atomic bomb was more than theoretically possible, it should be practically possible too. Some research was begun but we had more pressing things to attend to and a shortage of manpower, resources and money.
Churchill convinced Roosevelt of the importance of the project and the research, (and the British scientists), was transferred to America. After Pearl Harbour the project expanded massively with unlimited resources being made available to what became the Manhattan Project.
Shortly after the end of the war a Bill was passed in America, I think the McMahon Act, which prohibited the sharing of nuclear information with any other nation, including us. After a degree of complaining to no avail, Attlee decided we should develop our own nuclear devices. Some knowledge came back with our scientists but it was almost as if we had to start again. I believe the biggest problem came with the design of the detonator.
As I said, some of the details could be wrong but that should be a reasonably accurate summary.
By: - 29th November 2005 at 15:22 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Found this on a website and it was the miles company who invented it in 1943
in 1942 the Air Ministry and the Ministry of Aviation approached Miles Aircraft with a top-secret contract for a turbojet research plane designed to reach supersonic speeds. Designed to meet specification E.24/43, which called for an aeroplane capable of flying over 1,000 mph (more than twice as fast as any that had flown previously in level flight). The Miles M.52 had many advanced features such as the ultra-thin BI-convex wings , an annular air intake, an all-moving tailplane (which was built and tested on the Miles "Gillette Falcon" in 1943) and a complete escape capsule for the pilot. The engine was to be a Power Jet W2/700 with afterburner and a specially ducted fan to increase the airflow.
By: - 29th November 2005 at 16:39 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
I've been reading the RAE's report into the 1/3 scale M52 rocket-powered tests, and it makes interesting copy. It makes the point that the programme was somewhat overtaken in its primary aim (seeing what happened to an aircraft as it approached and exceeded the sound barrier) by the Bell X-1, and was therefore cancelled. However, it makes the point that the Vickers engineers learned a lot about operating pilotless aircraft, and that this was more or less thrown away by the cancellation. Typical - another lead lost.
Apparently the first test airframe was ready to fly in mid 1947, but was lost when the launch aircraft (a Mosquito) flew into a storm cloud - the testbed fell off and is currently residing somewhere under the Bristol Channel. A second was produced and was launched in October 1947, but the rocket failed to ignite. A year was then spent developing the rocket propulsion (originally the point of the project was to use existing solid fuel rocket motors which proved impractical so a liquid fuel system had to be developed from scratch. Airframe number three flew in October 1948 and achieved around Mach 1.38.
Sadly, the project was cancelled after a single successful flight, which removed the possibility to test different airframe layouts, wing and tail planforms, autopilot settings and tail incidence. It's intriguing to think what might have been achieved with a few more flights.
Nevertheless, the flight proved beyond all question that the M52, as designed, would have worked and would have been capable of breaking the sound barrier - at least aerodynamically, whether the engine would have been equally successful is open to debate, although projections suggest it would have had thrust to spare. A shame as the RAE report betrays a great deal of uncertainty about the efficacy of the M52 design before the rocket model flew.
At least three huge opportunities lost then. It's clear that the all moving tail specifically as a device to aid control in transonic flight was developed independently by Miles. The key question is whether Bell came to the same conclusion on their own or not.
By: - 29th November 2005 at 17:38 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
According to Yeager in the programme, the X-1 was built with conventional elevators. When he reached Mach 0.94, the elevators became completely ineffective. It was then that Ridley suggested using the adjustable tailplane for pitch control at high speed.
I suppose this suggests that either the Miles data wasn't available to the Bell designers, or they didn't believe it.
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By: Phillip Rhodes - 28th November 2005 at 19:34
Okay, I might be going over old ground but the BBC aired a documentary on Sunday night about breaking of the sound barrier.
Now it is known that the Bell X1 was fitted with an all moving tailplane. This is fact. But what I'm concerned about are the Americans going on about it being their invention, when it was clearly fitted to the Miles M52 and according to some accounts had been invented in the UK during the war.
Whose right?
I understand that the Bell X1 was not originally fitted with the aforementioned all moving tailplane. I also understand that it was originally fitted to the British Miles M52 and that the Americans visited the UK to look at our work, on the understanding that we would be allowed access to the Bell X1 program. What happaned? Well, as soon as the Americans returned to the USA they reclassified their project TOP SECRET and denied access to the British.
Can anyone verify any of this...?