Re: UFOs of the Reich

From: "Michael Llaneza" <maserati@earthlink.net>

> They have a lot of computer generated imagery of Luftwaffe prototypes
> and drawing board dreams too. Great eyecandy. The He-1078a for example
> (http://www.luft46.com/ghart/gh078-1.jpg) could have flown against the
> Mig-15.

...or more likely a development of the Miles M52.

See http://www.soton.ac.uk/~genesis/Level2/Planes/Britain/M52.htm
(which has a link to a video)
and http://www.bigwig.net/museumofberkshireaviation/m52.htm

"In 1942 the Air Ministry and the Ministry of Aviation approached Miles
Aircraft with a top-secret contract for a turbojet research plane
designed
to reach supersonic speeds. The Miles M.52 was designed for a speed of
1000mph at 36,000 feet to be reached in 1.5 minutes."

After the program had been cancelled in January 46, they built some 3/10
scale models, and fitted them with rocket propulsion.

At the second attempt in 1948..
"This was successful and a speed of Mach 1.5 was obtained. But, instead
of
diving into the sea as planned, the model ignored radio commands and was
last observed (on radar) heading out into the Atlantic."

I have it on good authority ( my father worked on the project) that
it did not "ignore commands". The commands were for it to self-destruct
by doing a maximum-g manoeuvre (loop combined with roll) to tear the
airframe apart.
But the team at Miles had designed this airframe to be STRONG. It
did the 15+ g manouevre and kept on going in the direction of the US,
whereupon it moved out of radio range.

All the data about the project - wind tunnel results, calculations etc -
had preceeded it two years earlier, when the whole project documentation
and special instruments (analogue computers etc) were sent to Bell
Aircraft.

It's important to realise this was a research aircraft, not a production
combat aircraft. Range would have been short, about the same as a
Spitfire.
But there were plans for cannon-armed variants, rather slower, only Mach
1.3,
but still equivalent to the F-100 and Mig-19. To be in service by 1948.

If you want "weird", have a look at
http://www.miles-aircraft.com/Menu_page.html
in particular
http://www.miles-aircraft.com/M.35_and_m.39b_libellula.html