In 1919 Fritz Koolhoven produced the little single-seat pusher knownas the BAT Crow. Later the author was convinced that this was the ideal layout for the club or private owner's aircraft. The unobstructed view and the seat being only 2 feeabove the ground provided the inexperienced pilot with ideal conditions for judging his landing. This opinion was confirmed at Brooklands in 1933 on inspection of the two-seat pusher known as the Shackleton Murray S.M.I. Having enlisted the enthusiastic support of George Miles, we tackled F.G. Miles about producing a side-by-side twoseat aircraft on these lines. However, he was immersed in his newly-won success with the Hawk which showed promise of becoming a best seller and, in addition, the author was pressing him to produce a faster and more refined version powered by a Gipsy Major engine giving 50 % more power than the Cirrus III. At first Miles was not keen to depart from his original idea of producing a really cheap private owner's aeroplane and he was by no means convinced that the enhanced performance would justify nearly doubling the price. However, under sustained pressure, he agreed and set about planning the Hawk Major.
In these circumstances it is hardly surprising that, with the very limited facilities at his disposal, he should show little enthusiasm for yet another design to compete in the same market. The pressure was kept up, however, and eventually we persuaded Miles to build the machine, albeit with very lukewarm interest.
Unfortunately, the light low-powered engine for which the aircraft was designed was not available by the time the airframe was nearing completion and this necessitated the use of a 95 HP Cyrrus of considerably greater weight. Since the engine was mounted behind the centre of gravity, this led to C.G. difficulties in that the heavier engine had to be moved forward. This meant that the propeller would foul the trailing edge of the wing, a large portion of which had to be cut away, thus losing the lift of the entire centre section while at the same time greatly increasing the drag. The final result was that the aircraft showed little inclination to take-off and Miles lost no time in dropping theproject for which he had never felt much enthusiasm. George and the author still think that this layout has much to commend it and it is interesting to note the close resemblance between this project of 1933 and George's basic jet trainer, the M.100 Student of over 20 years later.
Unfortunately no data for the Pusher Project have survived.