| Andres Erdös, e-mail, 07.09.2012 01:50 Begun in 1939, the design was a scaled-down version of the gigantic Miles M.26 airliner then being developed. The proposed Miles X Airliner was to have blend fuselage, eight engines driving four sets of contra-rotating propellers, seating 55 with a range of 3,450 miles (5,550 km). The Miles X Airliner was offered as candidate to the post Second World War Brabazon Report Type 1 Requirement for a trans-Atlantic use but was rejected because the Miles design had only half the seating required.
The small size of the X Minor made it impossible to scale the larger design exactly; the engines were too large and resulted in an aircraft similar in layout but differing in aerodynamics. The X Minor first flew in February 1942, providing Miles with useful data for several years. A larger scale prototype of the X transport was planned but never built. reply |
