Top speed 257 km/h Manufacturer Miles Aircraft | Length 8 m | |
 | ||
The Miles M.30 X-Minor was an experimental aircraft, designed by Miles Aircraft to evaluate the characteristics of blended fuselage and wing intersections.
Contents
Design and development
Begun in 1939, the design was a scaled-down version of the gigantic Miles M.26 airliner (Miles X) then being developed. The proposed Miles X Airliner was to have had a blended 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.
Specifications (M.30 X-Minor)
Data from Miles aircraft since 1925
General characteristics
Performance