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Aviation History
1946
1946 - 1965.PDF
OCTOBER 3RD, 1946 T LIGHT 355 General arrange- ment of the Miles M.52 (E.24/43) showing, in the side views, the preliminary and ultimate power plant installations. It will be seen that the ultimate (lower) scheme called for thrust augmentation. -4= O°33'WING INCIDENCE Miles on Supersonic Flight Background of M.52 Development : Design Problems Analysed ESSENTIAL features of the Miles M.52, or E.24743,supersonic research aircraft were described in Flightof September 12th. To supplement this information Miles Aircraft, Ltd., have prepared a Paper outlining the research undertaken before the design of the M.52 was crystallized and setting out the problems associated with flight at supersonic speeds. The gist of the Paper is given below. Towards the end of 1937, runs the Paper, statements were made before a learned society that there appeared to be no reasonable tiope of building a useful aircraft for work beyond the speed at which compressibility stall occurred. Apparently this was the general opinion of the meeting at that time, as only Sqn. Ldr. Whittle registered a protest against this attitude to the future possibilities of high- speed flight. Some six years later, however, Miles Aircraft, Ltd. were actively engaged on the design and construction of a machine that was not only to fly in this '' impreg- nable " region, but which, the designers had every hope and confidence, would fly right through the "barrier" and achieve 1,000 m.p.h. in level flight, this speed being approximately twice that considered possible a few year? before. Surveying briefly the general problems encoun tered the Paper states: - Compressibility At low speeds it may be assumed that air is incompres sible and the density everywhere in the field is the same, but as is well known with high-speed aircraft, this assump tion causes large errors, and allowances for compressibility effects must be made, and, of course, the closer the speed of the aircraft to the local speed of sound, the greater are these effects. The speed of sound in the air is propor- tionate to the temperature only, the density and pressure having no direct effect. The velocity of sound decreases with height up to the tropopause, and remains materially constant above this height in sympathy with the temperature. If we consider a body moving through air at speeds con- siderably less than that of sound, a flow pattern is obtained in which the air is deflected some distance in front of the A model of the Miles M.52 during wind tunnel tests under conditions corresponding to 900 m.p.h. Shock waves are clearly "visible.
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