September 1946: the Miles 52, the supersonic aircraft that never was

In September 1946, The Engineer published a feature based on details that had recently been released by the Ministry of Defence. Just a few months earlier, the British government had cancelled the programme due to budget constraints, despite the design of the supersonic research aircraft being almost complete, and the construction of the first of three prototypes well underway.

Miles Aircraft of Reading had been tasked with building the turbojet-powered M52, which was intended to fly at 1,000 mph and reach a height of 36,000ft within 90 seconds. To achieve this, the engineers at Miles came up with a radical design more reminiscent of a piece of weaponry.

“Resembling a winged bullet, the overall dimensions were to have been 33ft long and 27ft wing span, the wings being somewhat shorter than those of aircraft of similar length,” The Engineer wrote 70 years ago.

“As a step towards producing a wing shape which has a low drag in the supersonic speed range and yet permits low speed flight with good control, Miles Aircraft Ltd designed a bi-convex wing, with very sharp leading and trailing edges.”