About a month ago I was looking for info on the efforts by Miles Aircraft to sell the M.38 Messenger to the Royal Navy as a light anti-submarine aircraft for merchant convoys. I came across this neat entry over at the Smithsonian NASM:
https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/miles-m38-messenger-miles-mariner-royal-navy-anti-submarine-patrol-aircraft. Intrigued, I dashed off a quick online reference request and promptly forgot about it.
To my surprise, last week I received a nice note from an NASM archivist and a clear photocopy of the entire brochure submitted by Miles back in 1944. I have to upload the PDF in monochrome to keep the file size down, so here are scans of just the drawings as well.
Especially interesting to me are the details of the catapult arrangement, the proposed skid landing gear, and what I believe are drawings of three versions of the airborne observation post (A.O.P.) version of the M.38 Messenger with extended glazing, single fin/rudder with endplates on the horizontal stabilizer, and three possible engine options (Cirrus Major, Lycoming O-435, Warner Super Scarab).
Enjoy!
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