Miles M.100 Student

[Mossie]

Lovely little trainer & COIN aircraft.  Unusual configuartion with a high wing & twin tail with the 880lb thrust Blackburn-Turbomeca Marbore II mounted immediately behind the cockpit & fed by a NACA intake.  The engine mounting helped to make it easily accessible for maintenance & allowed new larger powerplants to be installed realtively easily.  Different sizes of tip tank & jet pipe configurations were tested.
http://www.minijets.org/typo3/index.php?id=105
http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?t=47296

Miles offered the M.100 Student to the RAF, but with the Jet Provost already in service & the Student seen as underpowered it didn't get an order.  The protoype was changed to incorporate a Marbore VI with 1,050lb thrust to create the Mk.2which was aimed at the COIN role.  A pair of Browning 0.303 machine guns were fitted in underwing pods for trials (I've heard ADEN cannon mentioned as a possibility).  Several air forces were interested including South Africa, Australia, Malaysia & Jordan.

Flight article on the Student with cutaway:
http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1955/1955%20-%201792.html
http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1955/1955%20-%201793.html
http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1955/1955%20-%201794.html

The Graduate was definitive version, with a 1,640lb thrust Turbomeca Aubisque in an enlarged cowling with slightly larger intake.  South Africa were very interested & a licence was obtained to build them (A South African subsiduary of Miles would have been created) but this was blocked by the UK Government when the arms embargo was introduced.  SA went on to licence build the MB.326 as the Impala instead.  This prevented Miles getting the foot in the door they needed & with competition getting established, no orders were forthcoming & the sole prototype was the only M.100 to fly (albiet under four seperate registrations, G-35-4, G-APLK, XS-941 & G-MIOO).

Flight Article on the Graduate with three view.
http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1964/1964%20-%202666.html
http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1964/1964%20-%202667.html

[Mossie]

There's a kit of it, which I have been recentely passed by the very generous JayBee (Ta Jim!).  It was orginally produced under the Protojets label & is now offered by Whirlykits.  It looks quite nice, a bit of cleaning up & dry fitting shows a few problem areas but nothing serious.  It should go together pretty quickly.
http://www.internationalresinmodellers.com/reviews_page_8_whirlykits

It's currently being refurbished for static display, it was kept flying until the mid eighties when it was written off in accident.  The Key Publishing thread above has some pics of it in flight as well as being refurbed & a contribution by Derek Emsley who was heavily involved in the project.

Another proposed version was the Centurion, which would have four (some sources say five) seats & an eight seat version was investigated (again, see the second page on the Key Publishing thread above).

[Weaver]

I've got one too, thanks to Roger the Cabin Boy and my friend Ez (Christmas present).

Still debating what to do with it. Lovely as it was, it was still seriously underpowered in it's original form, when you consider that the not-exactly-quick Fouga Magister had two Marbores, which, I think, makes it a bit marginal for COIN. I could see it as a FAC aircraft for the RAF in Vietnam, but then I could see even more a scratchbuilt FAC version with a Gazelle cockpit pod....

[JayBee]

which, I think, makes it a bit marginal for COIN.

The Israeli's didn't think so

[Weaver]

which, I think, makes it a bit marginal for COIN.

The Israeli's didn't think so

You mean the Student or the Magister? The Israelis only used the Magister for CAS (not COIN) because the rest of their airforce was committed to strike and air defence, and they had to use anything they had. The Magister's warload remained two small pods of rockets and a couple of rifle calibre MGs though, which is far less than many similar, but more powerful aircraft. The A-37B Dragonfly knocks it into a cocked hat for warload...

[JayBee]

Yeh OK it only carried a small warload, but they still used it

[Weaver]

Yes indeed, but I didn't say it was impossible, just marginal. People have gone to war in Cessna 172s with hand-grenades when circumstances have forced them to, but that doesn't mean you see airforces with a choice actually choosing them... I just think that most airforces who wanted a trainer with a secondary light attack capability would go for something more pokey, that's all.

[rickshaw]

Yeh OK it only carried a small warload, but they still used it

As Weaver suggests more because of a lack of choice than anything else.   When it was used in that role, it was flown in an overload configuration even with only one pilot on board.  The Harvards they also used for CAS actually carried a heavier load than the Magisters!

[Mossie]

Although the slightly more powerful Student Mk.2 had a COIN capability, it only had two hard points.  It was primarily a trainer, with a COIN capability & wasn't seriously pushed for that role.

The COIN role was the reason for the Graduate, with Vietnam showing an opening for that role Miles were keen to jump on the bandwagon.  It had a 1,640lb Turbomeca Aubisque (I've seen the AS Viper mentioned as a possible powerplant, although Miles favoured the Aubisque) & four hardpoints which puts it with the Strikemaster.  I'm not sure how they would compare for speed, the Graduate figures from the Flight article mentions 294kts with full weapons load, compared to 418kts max speed (I'm guessing clean) for the Strikemaster.  Combat radius I can only find for the Mk.2 as 190 miles, compared to the Strikemasters 145 miles.

Snippets from the articles mention the NACA intake would have been transparent & moulded into the canopy.  Bang seats could be fitted if the roof panels were replaced with a single blow-off canopy.  For the training role, standard crash-worthy seats were seen as adequate, parachuting out was considered simple with the large car-style doors jettisoned.  Burma was another potential operator I missed earlier.

[Jschmus]

Nifty.  Looks a little like the Fairchild T-46.

[Mossie]

Never thought about that, I guess if you put the Eaglets engines on top they'd be very similar.  Although it's bigger & has a T-tail (& two Aubisques compared to one planned for the Graduate), the Saab 105 is on similar lines of thought.