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Miles M.36 Montrose Aircrew Trainer; M.36 Navigation, radio, bomb aiming and gunnery trainer and M.36 Target tug projects
By 1942 there seemed to be an increasing need for a new advanced trainer, especially in view of the forthcoming massive build-up of multi-engined bombers.
The Airspeed Oxford and Avro Anson had given yeoman service during the RAF’s transition period from biplanes to monoplanes but with their low powered engines and fixed pitch propellers they could scarcely be regarded as an appropriate introduction to the operational types of aircraft shortly to enter service. Moreover, they did not make adequate provision for the simultaneous training of an entire bomber crew. With these considerations in mind, Don Brown prepared a project design for the M.36, a new aircrew trainer to be powered by either two 600 hp Pratt & Whitney Wasp S3H1 engines similar to those fitted to the N.A. Harvard trainer; two 870 hp Bristol Mercury engines or four 420 hp Armstrong Siddeley Cheetah XV engines.
A crew of six was envisaged and in addition to pilot and crew training, provision was made in the M.36 for navigation and radio training, bomb aiming and gunnery and in a separate role, target towing. The M.36 was to have been of stressed-skin wooden construction throughout with the onepiece wing being fitted with retractable auxiliary aerofoil flaps and was designed for production both in Britain and in Canada. Constant-speed fully-feathering propellers were envisaged and provision was made for readily interchangeable undercarriages of the tailwheel and tricycle types.
The-projects were submitted to the Ministry of Aircraft production and while they were sympathetically considered, it was felt that at that time the commitment of the entire aircraft industry did not allow for the production of a new non-operational type, however desirable it may have been. Thus the Montrose, as the M.36 had by then been named, was never built.
SPECIFICATION AND PERFORMANCE DATA
Engines: 2 x 600 hp Pratt & Whitney S3H1;
2x 870 hp Bristol Mercury or
4 x 420 hp Armstrong Siddeley Cheetah XV
Dimensions: span 51ft 6in; length 40ft 0in; height 10ft 9in; wing area
410 sq ft; aspect ratio 6.5;
wing section, root NACA 23018, tip NACA 2412
Weights: empty (Wasp) 6,8351b, (Mercury) n.k., (Cheetah) 8,8351b; fuel
(250 gal) 1,8701b; oil
(20 gal) 1801b; crew 1,2001b; military load 7621b; AUW [Wasp] 10,8471b,
[Mercury]
n.k., [Cheetah] 12,8471b; wing loading [Wasp] 26.51bisq ft, [Mercury]
n.k., [Cheetah]
31.41bisq ft
Performance: max design diving speed 350 mph IAS; max speed [Wasp]
220 mph at 7,000ft;
[Mercury] 295 mph at 14,000ft, [Cheetah] 240 mph-at 5,000ft; run to
unstick 1,050ft;
distance to 50ft - 1,650ft
10.4.99 copyright Peter Amos, The Miles Aircraft Collection.
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