Flight Test

There are very few ‘Maggies’ around these days. Miles built 1,303, including 700-plus, which served as military trainers with both the Royal Air Force and Fleet Air Arm in Britain, plus a large number exported abroad. Today, just five are airworthy – and all are within our shores. Their construction was of spruce with a plywood skin and a fabric covering, making a light but strong structure. They and their Instructors trained many, much-needed pilots in 16 service schools throughout WWII. A modern, efficient, low-wing cantilever monoplane, that had its roots not just as a civilian club trainer, but as a racer too.

The small number remaining, explained by many tales of Guy Fawkes bonfire nights, celebrated by dragging a long unserviceable Maggie out and setting fire to it with the accompaniment of cheers. It seems almost unbelievably sacrilegious to us now, but then, it was a common fiery demise. And the reason? These unloved machines became less viable with time, their degrading casein glue raising structural issues, with the costs of repair proving uneconomical.

A return to home

However, the count on our shores of serviceable machines has only very recently increased by the addition of Richard Santus’ example, which was formerly registered LV-X245. This is one of 120 acquired by Argentina just after the war to distribute to its flying clubs. She had been rebuilt twice during her life and, a few years ago having arrived from the drier climate of Argentina by way of Czechia (its now preferred designation of the Czech Republic). She has been taken apart and totally rebuilt at Henstridge, over a condensed period of just two years, by Kevin Crumplin and Annabelle (Annie) Burroughes of Tiger Moth Training.

Since his retirement Kevin has rebuilt six de Havilland Tiger Moths, a Sherwood Ranger, a Van’s RV-6 and a rather splendid Stolp Starduster, which he was flying when I first met him. To add to the list a further three sailing boats and now a pre-WWII MG-A, he is progressing at home.

Annie is within the same form, but nowhere near retirement, and also has a similar grounding having completed her father’s Ferguson tractor, and inherited Land Rover. Aeroplane-wise, there’s been a shared RV-7 with FADEC (Full Authority Digital Engine Control), the first on the LAA fleet, and her own CASA/Bucker Jungmann, which now flies Luftwaffe garb, which she aerobats and displays.

The Maggie has been a joint undertaking of a solid two years in the remaking, interweaved with the various Covid lockdowns and restrictions, under the watchful eye of their Inspector, Ray Harper. I have watched the project grow over coffee breaks – and dark chocolate biscuits – from the adjoining hangar, hearing discussions on how ‘this and that’ was going, solving near intractable difficulties, and a myriad of steps towards their goal. All this while their other project of a 1930 Gipsy Moth was temporarily rested, waiting for its turn of rebirth and flight.

Some history

The Miles Magister sprang from British Air Ministry specification T.40/36, ‘T’ for trainer, ‘40’ for the 40th in sequence and ‘36’, for the year 1936, which requested a development and production version of the Miles Hawk Trainer. These elder siblings were of three versions. Four designated M2W Hawk Trainer had de Havilland Gipsy Major engines, nine M.2X’s had a larger rudder horn balance which reduced foot pressure forces and aided co-ordination, while the M.2Y had some further minor improvements. The M14, the company designation for the Magister prototype, first flew in March 1937. It had enlarged cockpits so that a parachute could be worn, its layouts and instruments were standardised, as well as an instrument flying hood that could be pulled forward to blank all external visual cues. A few modifications followed, principally to resist a tendency to spin by raising the tailplane six inches and fitting rear fuselage spin strakes on the upper aft fuselage. The rudder was also enlarged to aid recovery. This was probably an issue caused by elevators partially blanking a large section of the rudder, preventing an early and efficient surface to act against the direction of the spin. On acceptance, Miles put the Magister into production at Woodley in Berkshire.

The M14 Magister was the first low wing monoplane to enter service and prepared trainee students for the new high performance low-wing fighters, the F36/34 Hawker Hurricane and Spitfire F 37/34 (F for Fighter – logically!)

The Magister’s new technical attributes of main wheel brakes, a castering tailwheel, flaps and a pneumatic system, were all advances from the then in-service biplanes, notably the DH-82a, which had no conventional wheel brakes other than a steerable tail skid. This standard had kept biplanes operating into wind from grass airfields, limiting their pilots to unnecessary crosswind operational capabilities. Soon, ‘hard’ runways would be laid predominantly into wind to help maintain a regularly flat surface for heavier types. Here on a metalled surface, metal skids on hard runways produce little to no friction in arresting the aircraft’s rolling action, but did wear the skid down.

Incidentally, of the 24 syllabus flying exercises in use then, exercise 22 was crosswind landings, rather late in the order of the day and recommended only for the preparation of forced landings.

Everyday landings were into wind on a grass airfield, a luxury many of us can only dream of. The apocryphal RAF crosswind limit for the Tiger, is still quoted as 4mph. (0.2 of the stall speed), an accepted generalised limit would actually be 7.6mph, but then, there is the question of maintaining directional control on the roll out from the landing having got down.

Richard Santus

Sitting ready for flight, ‘she’ is resplendent in her dulled brown and dark green wavy lined camouflage. The conspicuous training yellow underneath rises to circle and define the fuselage roundel, the dark-toned wing roundels, contrasts the brighter red, white and blue fin flash and the scheme is topped off with purposeful Czech national emblems on both sides near the front cockpit.

She is a palette of WWII training livery art. Beautiful in her crisp and accurate presentation. That this Magister had been used to train free Czech Instructors and pilots within the Royal Air Force, was a particular facet of its past life that Richard wished to bring to view and display for his home country and historians.

Richard is an accomplished pilot flying in just about all of our aviation spectrum, from managing and flying at Aeropartner, a private charter airline that operates Citation light jets. Aeropartner commemorates the legacy of the Czechoslovak airmen fighting in exile in the period of 1939-1945 by using the company call sign ‘Dark Blue’ and having ‘DFC’ as their Air Carrier ICAO identifier. Richard is also an Instructor and display pilot (I first met him at a display at Pardubice, east of Prague), examiner, a commercial balloon pilot, and a glider and light aircraft test pilot. Handy, when it came to test flying the Magister.

He is also very keen on his country’s history, made stronger by delving beyond the ousted eastern influence propaganda and discovering the reality of his nation’s struggles. His company pilot’s uniform closely resembles that of our 1940s Air Force, which is a nice touch.

Walk around

Walking around the ‘Maggie’, it feels quite a large machine. It’s wingspan is near enough the same as its co-trainer, the Tiger Moth, at a couple of inches short of 34ft, but the all wooden, ply-covered wing is deeper, having a larger section (Clark YH) and the wing tips are high enough to lean, or rest your chin upon. Its wing area is 176 square feet and carries an all up weight of 1,900lb, giving a wing loading of 10.79lb per square foot. The originals were cleared for aerobatics at 1,845lb and the tare, or empty weight, is 1,286lb. The mainplane consists of the centre section, set at an incidence of one-and-ahalf degrees with no dihedral, but the two outer sections have six degrees dihedral. Hinged aft of the rear spar are five flap sections: one central, two on the inboard wing sections and a further two outboard.

The central section has been removed on some examples, and I guess this is for the same reason as for some like-minded Harvard operators hoping for greater control in crosswinds. The outboard ailerons are long, plywood skinned over 10 ribs, finished with cotton fabric. Cotton is used on the whole exterior finished through red, then silver dope (for UV protection) and finally the paint.

The aileron deflections are asymmetric, with significantly more up than down, 29 ½° to 9 ½°. This standard arrangement may help avert some adverse aileron drag to some extent, but the rudder will be needed for balance. Lead aileron mass balances are located toward the tips, concealed with neutral aileron but swing out from the wing undersurface as the aileron is raised, helping to prevent any control flutter.

The Magister uses a vacuum source for operating the flaps, with a tank located behind the cockpit charged from the lower end of the manifold. Curiously, it’s more efficient at low revs than at high power. The downside of the system for the training regime is that a fully charged system only lasts for three cycles in the circuit. A much-needed and innovative training aid, the inclusion of a flap system made students familiar with them before they moved to the monoplane fighters.

pneumatic shock absorbers wrapped in slightly ‘Stuka’like spats. The fact that there are many photos of Maggies being flown without these fitted, makes me think they were a nuisance to remove/refit for servicing. The brakes are a Bendix type, operated by cable and cockpit lever.

This is mounted on the left-hand side of both cockpit floors and pre-dates the similar Chipmunk system. The Maggie has a set of two ratchet control levers connected by a tie rod. Only the front cockpit ratchet can set the tension. If the rudder bar is in the central position and the

Cockpits

The fuselage has two tandem cockpits, with the Instructor sitting behind the student. Oddly the two windscreens are completely different. The front windscreen is an angular three-panelled frame that serves as a crash pylon, while the rear one is simply a curved piece of plexiglass. On the right-hand side, a small door for each cockpit makes getting in much easier, and behind there’s a cavernous storage compartment.

Stepping in, the P8 compass is a sizeable obstruction, being on the extreme right of the panel and right by the entrance. Look around you and the obvious horizontal, verticals and diagonal wooden formers and their plywood biscuits frame the inner cockpit sides. Originally, the four straps of the Sutton harness, restrained by a threaded bolt and a triangular wire clasp called a ‘butterfly’, are sadly no longer available, so a modern buckled harness is fitted instead. Make sure that in your bulky Irvin jacket you don’t lose a strap – and that you are unable to see it – as the jacket collar pushes into your face as you twist to look down and find it. The throttle and inboard mixture lever are placed for your left hand and beneath these, the flap lever, as well as the floor mounted brake lever, all are within easy reach.

To operate the pneumatic flaps you slide the lever forward for down, and once down the lever should be returned to neutral. To select up, slide the lever back, before returning it to neutral.

The left-hand side of the panel has the oil pressure gauge, the rpm gauge and the ASI in mph. Above are a pair of magneto switches. (The Magister manual refers to these as ‘ignition switches’). The prime panel position is filled by the large Reid and Sigrist turn and bank indicator and its indications will soon be very relevant when we are climbing away from the runway under full power. To the right is an ancient instrument found in some WWI aircraft.

It simply shows the angle of the aircraft relative to the horizon, if the nose is high the coloured liquid is above the middle mark and the nose low, the indication has a low level – you get the picture. A single needle altimeter is partially hidden behind that big P8 compass.

The fuel tap is under the panel on the right. Selected upright at 12 o’clock for both, and, 9 o’clock for the port tank, and 3 o’clock for the starboard tank. The 6 o’clock position is ‘Off’. There is a warning not to select the ‘Both Tanks’ position as an air lock may develop and prevent the flow of fuel. The contents gauges are wing mounted and each holds 10 imperial gallons (45 litres). According to the ATA notes for the Maggie, her Gipsy should be fuelled with 73 octane. We are lucky to have 91UL on hand at Henstridge.

Gosport tube

Instructor and student cockpit comms in the 1940s were via Gosport tubes. Rubber speaking cups and tubes linking the other pilot with his ear piece, rather like a stethoscope joined to a flying helmet. I haven’t ever used them when airborne and many years ago asked my father if you could really hear anything? His reply was not particularly precise, well, maybe it was… He paused and intoned, “Well, you knew the gist of what he was saying”, which was obviously good enough.

In 2022, a very practical Lynx intercom system has been fitted, and a Trig radio and transponder in the front cockpit. Not that you’d know it at first glance. The metal mounting plate is hinged below the lower edge of the panel and may be swung back under the panel out of sight making the Maggie’s cockpit look perfectly period.

The placement of the avionics in the front cockpit raises the point that this is now the cockpit to occupy should it be flown solo. The manual and many contemporary photographs of the aircraft in flight have the solo pilot in the rear cockpit. As our physical stature has grown, so has the average pilot’s weight and should the rear cockpit be used today, then countering weights would have to be placed in the front. The CofG range is from 29.3 to 34in aft of the datum marked 9in forward of the leading edge.

Another interesting point is that there is a master ignition switch in the front cockpit that can isolate the rear cockpit ignition switch, so as long as the front set of switches are up and the Master on, the engine will fire and run. I wonder if this was fitted after cases of crass students turning their rear set of mags off during flight? A modern Red Top lithium battery is located above the pilot’s right knee, and provides power for those modern avionics.

Rudder footwork

As mentioned earlier, the panel is dominated by a central turn and slip, familiar to all of today’s Tiger Moth pilots. The upward pointing needle should be pointing to the middle mark of the dial to show that the aircraft is in balanced flight. If the needle is pointing out to the left, as in the case when power is increased and the nose swings to the right, then a gentle rudder pressure on the same side as the needle is pointing will bring the needle back to its central indication and the aircraft will be in balance. Too much left rudder and the needle will pass beyond the central upper mark and point to the right, requiring a lightening of foot pressure.

The lower needle on the instrument can almost be ignored for VFR flight as banking attitudes will be by external reference. However, the four numbered marks indicate rates of turn, the first being for a rate one turn (180° in one minute), then rate two and so on. Useful if you end up in poor visibility and want to get out of trouble by heading in the opposite direction.

These two instruments, there is one in each cockpit, are all driven by an under fuselage venturi. Walk back to the aeroplane 15 minutes after a flight and you can still hear them winding down.

Gipsy foibles

Unlike the Tiger Moth, but like the Chipmunk, the Gipsy is primed from the left /port. Instead of raising a cowling the opening of a small hatch allows the pulling of a priming wire connected to the Hobson carburettor ‘tickler’ mounted on the other side of the engine, while one of two fuel pumps prime by a wiggling up and down of its small lever. A fiddly process, the reward is a stream of fuel that pees from the overflow. Call to the pilot ‘Mag switches off’ then suck the fuel in four or six blades depending on your ritual. This also confirms that there is no oil in the inverted cylinders. Of course all four compressions are sound, in fact I thought ‘stronger’ than normal. Later I learned the Gipsy 1C has a higher compression ratio of 6 to 1, more than I am used to swinging. ‘Fuel on, throttle set (cracked open) contact’. Both sets of mag’ switches, front and rear cockpits as well as the master ignition switch are all up and on. As the prop passes through the compression she fires. All is well, just use a warming wait of four minutes (six in the winter) and the power and mag' check with a 1,600rpm run up. The throttle is brought fully back to give a gentle tick over, the brake lever is engaged a third back for turning and the chocks are pulled. A series of gentle clearing ‘S’ turns follow so traffic may be avoided.

Accelerating for take-off, the swing to the right thanks to the Gipsy Major engine’s rotation can easily be held with some left rudder, while the tail wheel is on the ground, and as the tail comes up the additional gyroscopic swing to the right by the lowering prop’ disc is barely noticeable. She flies herself off and into ground effect gaining speed. Immediately everything felt right.

The smoothness, the trim, the control inputs – this is an aeroplane that makes you feel part of it. Kevin and Annabelle have certainly done a marvellous job of the restoration. Climbing out at 80 mph returned 900ft per min, and being used to Gipsys, I throttled back a tad from full power.

Setting the Magister up for straight and level, I set 1,900rpm, the rpm noted in the Air Transport Auxiliary notes that said should return 100mph. We got that, and

Top Rolling away on a formation break reveals the conspicuous trainer yellow underneath.

Above Restorers

Kevin and Annie in typical pose… it’s a shame you can’t hear the constant banter between these two… when with the flaps gave an equally reasonable 37mph. So the lower end of the scale was spot on. The stall behaviour at wings level no flap produced a slight warning buffet and a flattering wings level departure that could be smartly caught with stick forward and minimum height loss, whilst the stall with flap had more of a judder before its slight wing down objection, followed by standard recovery with stick forward.

Balanced flight with coordinated rudder and aileron is helped by the odd glance inside the cockpit to see the upward needle confirm or suggest correction, and by looking at the nose when applying aileron (and the seat of well-adjusted pants). Preventing any adverse aileron from yawing the nose away from a turn by keeping the nose in line with slight rudder pressure, she responds nicely!

She is also stable in pitch, directionally and laterally. Normally a steady heading sideslip would be used to investigate directional and lateral qualities, particularly at slow speed with flap down simulating the round out to land from a side slip. It’s in this flight regime that the training Magister experienced a number of fatalities. An unintended consequence, slipping approaches with flaps down allowed the flaps to blank the tail surfaces, leading to a and cross controls was definitely to be avoided. It does bring forward the point that it is the qualities of the aeroplane being flown that should be exercised, a good stable approach may be flown with drag flap to arrive at the threshold without the need for employing a slip.

On the other hand, having tried a standard approach with flap down, a ‘clean’ one with flap up means the approach has to be pretty flat and commenced further out to gain a clear view of the first third of the runway, even from a clean glide. In fact 75 is slightly too fast, perhaps nearer 70 being about right.

With the flaps down, you’re over the hedge at the 60 mark, remembering the sight picture of the front cockpit and cowling against the horizon, the stick being fully back when we touched down. That particularly pleased me! A delightful end to a short investigative flight for which I must thank Richard, Annabelle and Kevin. A thoroughly enjoyable experience of an historic aircraft and an insight into its remarkable behaviour.

Following a reunion with the UK’s four other flying Magisters at Old Warden in mid-May, Richard then ferried her home to Czechia where he’s been enjoying sharing this beautifully restored machine since. Kevin meanwhile has returned to his Gipsy Moth project and Annie to rebuilding a Belgian SV4 Stampe. Me? Well, I’m eating my way through another packet of dark chocolate digestives… ■

Miles Magister Specifications

General characteristics

Length 24ft 8in

Wingspan 33ft 10in

Wing area 176 sq ft

Empty Weight 1,286lb, Mtow 1,900lb

Useful load 606lb

Fuel capacity 20 imp gal

Power loading 14.3 lb/ hp

Engine Gipsy Major 1C 130hp

Performance

Vne 189mph

Cruise speed 122mph

Stall speed (full flap) 37mph (clean) 45mph

Range 319nm

Rate of Climb 850

Take-off distance (to 50ft) 1,200 ft (366 m)

Landing distance (over 50ft) 975 ft (297 m)

Service ceiling 16,500ft