Good job the M.52 was'nt given to the French…

I did warn you, Mr Blue Sky, of the consequences of reviving the M.52 debate. Dr Alertken Ph.D is already here and, I suspect, it won’t be long before the rest of the faculty arrive and get the debate into full swing! But I hope they will permit my Sunday frivolity – the really erudite debates are one of the main reasons why I keep coming back to this forum.

avion ancien
I make it a rule never argue with someone unless I have equal knowledge on the subject in question… 😉 As I do not, I think it would be prudent of me to sit back and wait for the rest of the faculty to arrive, you never know I might actually learn something new… 🙂

I did warn you, Mr Blue Sky, of the consequences of reviving the M.52 debate. Dr Alertken Ph.D is already here and, I suspect, it won’t be long before the rest of the faculty arrive and get the debate into full swing! But I hope they will permit my Sunday frivolity – the really erudite debates are one of the main reasons why I keep coming back to this forum.

Only a blunder if you were a Miles brother or wife. (Not M.52-linked) only stupidity if you were a designer at a small firm like Fairey, Saro (who had no fallback for their cancelled projects). It was industry-sponsored writers who uttered such tripe. Sandys saved an over-stretched industry by substituting things to build in quantity, vice inoperable devices to pirouette at a Show, but never deploy. M.52 was funded (in 1943!) as an FTB for one of Whittle’s notions which MoS/industry chose to park for a couple of decades (reheated {Plenum Chamber Burning} turbofan). Its razor wing would have provided no military utility. Supersonic is of no military purpose in Close Air Support, and zero-endurance supersonic is of no military utility in interception. See: F-104G, sold despite its unloaded, high, inagile speed, not because of it. Being first to >M1 proved about as useful as any US 1950s’ X-craft. Mirages suffered not one jot from France not having been first, nor Lightning from Miles’ elimination from real work.

Ben Lockspeiser (MoS’ senior scientific civil servant) did not cancel M.52 – Ministers do that, on advice of the payoff from spending yet more of our money. UK, early-1946, broke, cold, hungry, with no enemy, hoped to earn a living by exporting the Brabazon suite. No Buyer, so no sponsor for an experiment by a gluesmith. The Minister, Cripps, who had started M.52 was now in Cabinet, at Trade; Miles had Brabazon VB, Marathon, to be shorter-haul core of the intended State Corporations, and happily exported. BL‘s task was to explain squander without traducing Minister or manufacturer, or himself as a less senior inspirer of M.52, 30 months earlier. So: “unjustifiable risk to brave pilots”.

……….although some might say that the two words are ‘Sandy’s Stupidity’!

😉 Quite…

Two words… ‘Ben’s Blunder’ 🙂

……….although some might say that the two words are ‘Sandy’s Stupidity’!

Did the British in our heyday of testing new jet fighters and associated technology trials?

Two words… ‘Ben’s Blunder’ 🙂

Oooh, you like living dangerously! The last time that the M.52 had a thread here the posts eventually aspired to Ph.D level. And those on this side of la Manche might view your comments about French test pilots as a tad francophobic as well as a bit more inaccurate. But then, everyone is entitled to an opinion. However I’m feeling benevolent this evening and so I’ll just put it down to a desire to initiate an interesting debate. I wonder if others will be that charitable.

But all the same the French never seemed to have had any qualms about losing test pilots… 😉

Did the British in our heyday of testing new jet fighters and associated technology trials?