Aviation Naval Warfare Land Systems Small Arms By Flag By Year By Tag

Miles M.23

1941 WORLD WAR 2 X-PLANE

Miles M. 23 History

By 1941, Britain was fully involved in World War II (1939-1945), and its combat troops were dedicated to defending their homeland. Although the Royal Air Force (RAF) has fielded very powerful models in the Hawker Hurricane and the Super Sea Spitfire, there is always room for improvement in the design or acceptance of more advanced design forms should such products emerge.

Engineers at Miles Aircraft have developed plans for a new single-seat, single-engine, high-speed fighter that revolves around concepts of extremely low frontal area, drag reduction and overall streamlined shape to produce an impressive Profound speed type aircraft used as a doubly effective artillery platform - essentially a fighter design capable of outmaneuvering any weapon the Germans might use.

The Miles M. 23 was the result of this work, the spherical fighter was powered by either a Rolls Royce Merlin or a Griffon engine on the nose (early forms of the M.23 carried the Merlin and transitioned to the Griffon until the new engine's availability). The cockpit will be midship, but aft of the fuselage, and the low-mounted circular main aircraft will be under the fuselage. Main planes are particularly noteworthy because their thickness has dropped from 20% near the fuselage to 6% at the tip - encouraging higher wing loads compared to contemporaries.

The formation of tail units is largely traditional, using a single circular vertical plane and a small area horizontal plane. Fully retractable wheeled wide-gauge "reversing trike" landing gear will be used for ground operation.

The cockpit will be buried in the AF section of the fuselage behind the main aircraft, with the pilot sitting under a low two-piece canopy. At the rear of the pilot is a raised dorsal ridge that increases the internal volume of fuel and related systems but limits visibility to the key "six".

In terms of armament, the fighter is armed with 8 x .303 caliber (7.7mm) machine guns (four guns per wing limb) and 500 rounds of 7.7mm ammunition or 2 x 20mm Hispano-Suiza automatic cannons (each Wing members one weapon).

Internally, the plane will be made of a mixture of metal and wood, with the spars made from the former and plywood for the ribs. The hull itself will be formed from a monocoque arrangement with more plywood added to the mix.

As stated earlier, the M. 23 should have a barrel length of 28.7 feet and a wingspan of 31 feet. Depending on how the engine is installed, the product will weigh between 6,200 pounds (Merlin engine) and 7,500 pounds (Griffon engine), and show a (rather optimistic) estimate of speeds of up to 470 mph.

It will have a service cap of 40,000 feet.

Although the M. 23 was promising, the demands of the war made the M. 23 a victim, and the design moved beyond the drawing stage. The M.23A, despite having an almost identical name, was a completely different fighter from the one proposed by Miles Aircraft in 1942.