Miles M.24 Master Fighter

[phylo_roadking]

In the Summer of 1940, the RAF had 24 Miles Master I RR Kestrel-engined advanced trainers re-equiped as "fighters". The second seat was removed along with some of the excessive cockpit glazing, and three .303 Brownings installed in each gull wing - and the subsequent aircraft redesignated the M.24.

The Miles Master I two-seat advanced trainer was slower than a Gladiator...but faster than, say, a Fokker D.XXI, and was notably stable, well behaved, but also very manouverable and predictable. With a higher output motor than the Kestrel's 750 HP it would actually have made a pretty good late 1930s technology monoplane fighter - if better hadn't been available in the shape of the Hurricane and Spitfire...and if Miles had been a volume producer pre-war. The later Master II trainer with 820 hp Bristol Mercury engine gave it slightly better performance to the Gloster Gladiator - despite being over 1,000lbs heavier, empty or gross weight.

That was enough to equip two 12-plane scratch squadrons...but thankfully, along with many other similar emergency schemes that never went beyond the prototype stage, the Master Fighters were never used.

However, although I've got a lot of details on various converted and experimental aircraft being converted BACK to type...I can't turn up ANYTHING on the Master Fighters. Can anyone confirm if they were reconverted into trainers, or remained as armed aircraft, or possibly used as communications aircraft or something?

[Liam]

Strange one that. After all it was pilots the RAF were short of, not Hurricanes and Spitfires!

[phylo_roadking]

There were a lot of panic specifications issued at the time for cheap fihters to be produced in an emergency if LW bombing crippled the existing British aviation industry, or fighter-to-fighter attrition accelerated to the point that the Ministry of Aircraft production couldn't replace losses.

Here are two more personal favourites...

http://www.jaapteeuwen.com/ww2aircraft/ ... %20M20.htm

http://www.jaapteeuwen.com/ww2aircraft/ ... I-MONO.htm

Don't forget that the summer of 1940 was as much a triumph for British manufacturing as it was for anyone; PREDICTED figures from MAP for fighter deliveries were 292, 329, and 282 for June, July and August...

...BUT in reality Beaverbrook managed to turn out 446, 496 and 476 respectively! This huge jump in production wasn't predicted - well, as you can see LOL - so the Air Ministry had panicked a tad and issued the emergency specifications for cheap, easy-to-produce aircraft. It also didn't predict the success Beaverbrook's Forward Repair Depots would have in returning badly damaged aircraft to squadrons in as-new condition during the BoB.