Miles Aircraft

Miles Aircraft was one of the most innovative aircraft companies of the 1930s and 1940s. Driven by the resourceful and energetic F.G. Miles, ably supported by his wife Blossom and brother George, F.G. Miles graduated from operating a flying school at Shoreham to designing and building a highly successful range of light aircraft for sale to private pilots of the 1930s. The two-seat Hawk trainers and the Falcon and Whitney Straight touring aircraft were much in demand and Miles also led the field in air racing between the wars.
With the arrival of the Second World War, Miles expanded the factory at Reading to build large numbers of Master and Magister trainers. They also produced many advanced project designs to meet wartime needs and the opportunities that would come with peace. The vision of the Miles brothers led to the M.52 supersonic project which would have put Britain in the forefront of post-war fighter technology if it had been allowed to survive.
Converting wartime capacity into production of aircraft for peaceful purposes was a challenge which led to output of the Messenger, Gemini and Aerovan. Miles also designed and built the first Marathon light airliner. Regrettably, the effort of this transition proved too much for the company and it succumbed to financial pressures in 1948. Nevertheless, the legacy of the Miles brothers carries on with a number of surviving Miles aircraft which fly today and are much-revered by followers of vintage aeroplanes.


Rod Simpson (compiler)
THE ARCHIVE PHOTOGRAPHS SERIES
Published by Chalford Publications, 1998 128pp fine.
One of a series of paperback books, 16x24, using period photographs to chart a company's history.





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"Long" descriptions, where shown, may have been taken from the book's dust jacket notes, and as such are relevant to the date of publication (e.g. any references to "previously unpublished photographs" etc.) and not the present.

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