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Painted in oils on canvas. 1999. 300mm x 400mm. |
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‘Going Solo’ With the Miles Magister, which was first delivered to the Service in 1937, the RAF gained its first monoplane elementary training aircraft. Many pilots, who would soon be fighting in the Battle of Britain, made their first solo flight in this well loved aircraft – the ‘Maggie’. With a top speed of 140 mph and a landing speed of 45 mph, the Magister had a far better overall performance than any RAF elementary trainer then in use. What is more, with its low-wing monoplane characteristics and split trailing-edge flaps, it safely reproduced the handling techniques of the new aircraft about to come into service. The Magister was the final development of the original Hawk design which, over the previous three years, had laid the foundations for Woodley as a major manufacturing centre. Its immediate predecessor was the Hawk Trainer, used in the Reserve Flying Training School which Phillips & Powis were operating under a contract from the Air Ministry. Perhaps it was the success of the Hawk Trainer that persuaded the Air Ministry to order the Magister. Perhaps it was the constant ‘badgering’ of FG Miles with his slogan ‘monoplane pilots need monoplane trainers’. Whatever the cause, not only did the Air Ministry change its view of monoplanes, but it also reversed its policy that only metal aircraft would be accepted for Service use. The contract for the Magister radically changed the small airfield, when a huge extension to the factory virtually swallowed up the clubhouse of the Reading Aero Club. Eventually, it was to see the construction of some 1,500 Magisters – undoubtedly the best remembered of all the aircraft built at Woodley. ____________________ |