AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 138 / 275

Plate 138 of 275 · Second World War · Four-seat cabin monoplane, liaison and private-owner aircraft

Miles M.38 Messenger 2A

Messenger 2A, G-AHUI, painted as G-AHUI, constructor’s number 6335, a Miles M.38 Messenger 2A built by Miles Aircraft (Northern Ireland) at Newtownards in 1946, flown by private owners until 1957 and rebuilt by The Aeroplane Collection at Hooton Park as a composite that takes its identity from the cockpit section, with parts of G-AILL: the four-seat low-wing cabin monoplane George Miles designed in 1942 as a slow-flying air observation post and liaison aircraft, with a wooden fuselage and one-piece wooden wing, an inverted four-cylinder Blackburn Cirrus Major III under a deep cowling, a two-bladed propeller, a glazed cabin with doors on both sides, external aerofoil flaps under the trailing edge, a tailplane carrying three fins and rudders, and a fixed tailwheel undercarriage, shown standing tail-down with its flaps hanging: pale blue-grey overall with a blue cheat line from behind the spinner along each side of the cowling to the windscreen and blue over the top of the cowling front, black ‘G-AHUI’ on both sides of the rear fuselage, a polished spinner and a black propeller with yellow tips, as photographed at Hooton Park in 2024 and 2025 (shape from the Aeromodel ‘Flying Scale’ Messenger plan, scaled to the 36 ft 2 in span and 24 ft length; the museum displays the aircraft without its outer wings, which are modelled from the plan in the same grey); it stands for the Messenger and its twin-engined offspring the Gemini 1A, three of which are also at Hooton Park, and the Messenger 4A RH371 at the Ulster Aviation Society.

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as G-AHUI, constructor’s number 6335, a Miles M.38 Messenger 2A built by Miles Aircraft (Northern Ireland) at Newtownards in 1946, flown by private owners until 1957 and rebuilt by The Aeroplane Collection at Hooton Park as a composite that takes its identity from the cockpit section, with parts of G-AILL: the four-seat low-wing cabin monoplane George Miles designed in 1942 as a slow-flying air observation post and liaison aircraft, with a wooden fuselage and one-piece wooden wing, an inverted four-cylinder Blackburn Cirrus Major III under a deep cowling, a two-bladed propeller, a glazed cabin with doors on both sides, external aerofoil flaps under the trailing edge, a tailplane carrying three fins and rudders, and a fixed tailwheel undercarriage, shown standing tail-down with its flaps hanging: pale blue-grey overall with a blue cheat line from behind the spinner along each side of the cowling to the windscreen and blue over the top of the cowling front, black ‘G-AHUI’ on both sides of the rear fuselage, a polished spinner and a black propeller with yellow tips, as photographed at Hooton Park in 2024 and 2025 (shape from the Aeromodel ‘Flying Scale’ Messenger plan, scaled to the 36 ft 2 in span and 24 ft length; the museum displays the aircraft without its outer wings, which are modelled from the plan in the same grey); it stands for the Messenger and its twin-engined offspring the Gemini 1A, three of which are also at Hooton Park, and the Messenger 4A RH371 at the Ulster Aviation Society. Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (641 KB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (Messenger 2A/4A, Gemini 1A); engine, crew and dimensions are for the Messenger 2A, G-AHUI modelled here.

History

The Messenger

The Messenger began as a private venture by George Miles at Phillips & Powis, Woodley, in 1942. The Army wanted an air observation post that could fly very slowly, land in a small field and be maintained in the open, and Miles drew a stubby low-wing cabin monoplane with a wooden structure, a deep fuselage seating four, large external aerofoil flaps hung under the trailing edge, and a tailplane carrying three fins and rudders, which kept the rudders in the propeller slipstream and gave good control at very low speeds. The prototype first flew on 12 September 1942.

The AOP order went instead to the Auster, but the Messenger’s short take-off and roomy cabin suited senior officers who needed to drop into improvised strips close to the front. A small batch of Messenger Is was built for the RAF as VIP transports; Field Marshal Montgomery used them in north-west Europe in 1944 and 1945, and Lord Tedder flew in another. Their Gipsy Major engines made them, after the war, the civil Messenger 4A.

Peace brought the civil Messenger 2A, with a Blackburn Cirrus Major III, built mostly by the company’s Northern Ireland factory at Newtownards for private owners, clubs and air taxi firms at home and in the Commonwealth. Miles followed it in 1945 with the M.65 Gemini, a twin-engined development with a retractable undercarriage and the same triple tail, of which about 170 were built before the company collapsed in 1947. The gazetteer’s museums hold Messengers at Hooton Park and the Ulster Aviation Society, and three Geminis at Hooton Park.

This airframe

Miles M.38 Messenger 2A G-AHUI

G-AHUIThe airframe modelled

G-AHUI, constructor’s number 6335, was built at Newtownards in 1946 as a Messenger 2A and flew with private owners until 1957; it was photographed at Kidlington in 1958 and at Wolverhampton in 1961. It then passed through several preservation groups in store, and in 2002 the Miles Aircraft Collection gave it to The Aeroplane Collection. At Hooton Park the Collection’s volunteers rebuilt it as a composite, taking its identity from the original cockpit section and using parts of another Messenger, G-AILL, and it went on show in November 2023, believed to be the first Messenger on public display in a British museum. Its outer wings were cut from the one-piece wing years ago, so it is displayed without them. The model shows it complete, standing tail-down with its flaps hanging: pale blue-grey overall, with a blue cheat line from behind the spinner along each side of the cowling to the windscreen, black ‘G-AHUI’ on the rear fuselage, a polished spinner and a black propeller with yellow tips. The shape follows the Aeromodel ‘Flying Scale’ Messenger plan, scaled to the 36 ft 2 in span and 24 ft length, with the markings taken from photographs of G-AHUI at Hooton Park in 2024 and 2025; the outer wings are modelled from the plan in the same grey.

See it at Hooton Park Hangars

Where to see one

In the gazetteer

The gazetteer records the Messenger in 2 UK collections. The airframe modelled here is marked.

Every airframe and serial All 275 plates

Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.