AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 54 / 225

Plate 54 of 225 · Between the wars · Single-seat sporting and aerobatic biplane

Southern Martlet

Southern Martlet (1930), painted as G-AAYX, the Shuttleworth Collection’s Southern Martlet, the second production aircraft, built at Shoreham in 1930, flown by F.G. Miles as his personal aircraft from Woodley, used by Butlins for displays after the war and flying again from Old Warden since 25 September 2000: Miles’s single-seat sporting and aerobatic biplane developed from the Avro Baby, of 25 ft span with staggered, unequal-span wings, a deep slab-sided fuselage, a V undercarriage with oleo legs and a 100 hp Armstrong Siddeley Genet Major five-cylinder radial standing uncowled round an aluminium nose, shown standing tail-down on its wheels and tail skid as displayed and flown at Old Warden: red fuselage, interplane struts and wheel discs, a natural aluminium nose, silver-doped wings and tailplane, a white fin and rudder with a red leading-edge band and five red wedges running aft, white ‘G-AAYX’ on both fuselage sides, navy ‘G-A’ and ‘AYX’ across the upper wing, black cabane and undercarriage, and a two-bladed wooden airscrew with cream blades and copper-sheathed edges (shape from Don Luck’s 1:7 scale plan of G-AAYX in Aviation Modeller International, June 1996, scaled to the published span, with the engine, airscrew, interplane struts and markings following photographs of G-AAYX).

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as G-AAYX, the Shuttleworth Collection’s Southern Martlet, the second production aircraft, built at Shoreham in 1930, flown by F.G. Miles as his personal aircraft from Woodley, used by Butlins for displays after the war and flying again from Old Warden since 25 September 2000: Miles’s single-seat sporting and aerobatic biplane developed from the Avro Baby, of 25 ft span with staggered, unequal-span wings, a deep slab-sided fuselage, a V undercarriage with oleo legs and a 100 hp Armstrong Siddeley Genet Major five-cylinder radial standing uncowled round an aluminium nose, shown standing tail-down on its wheels and tail skid as displayed and flown at Old Warden: red fuselage, interplane struts and wheel discs, a natural aluminium nose, silver-doped wings and tailplane, a white fin and rudder with a red leading-edge band and five red wedges running aft, white ‘G-AAYX’ on both fuselage sides, navy ‘G-A’ and ‘AYX’ across the upper wing, black cabane and undercarriage, and a two-bladed wooden airscrew with cream blades and copper-sheathed edges (shape from Don Luck’s 1:7 scale plan of G-AAYX in Aviation Modeller International, June 1996, scaled to the published span, with the engine, airscrew, interplane struts and markings following photographs of G-AAYX). Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (704 KB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (); engine, crew and dimensions are for the Southern Martlet (1930) modelled here.

History

The Martlet

Frederick George Miles began his aviation career in the 1920s running a flying school and joyriding business at Shoreham, on the Sussex coast, under the name Southern Aircraft. His first production design was a reworking of the Avro Baby, a small single-seat biplane of 1919: Miles kept its general layout but rebuilt it with a new, deeper fuselage, new wings of 25 ft span and a radial engine, and named it the Martlet, the heraldic bird of the Sussex arms.

The prototype, G-AAII, first appeared in public at the London Air Park, Hanworth, on 30 August 1929, with an 85 hp ABC Hornet. Five production aircraft followed at Shoreham in 1930 and 1931, with a mixture of engines: most had the 80 hp Armstrong Siddeley Genet II five-cylinder radial, one the 100 hp Genet Major and others de Havilland Gipsy in-line engines. A sixth, the all-metal Metal Martlet, was a quite different design and was not a success.

The Martlet was light, strong and quick on the controls, and its private owners flew it mainly for aerobatics; as a racer it was less successful. Among its buyers were the Marquess of Douglas and Clydesdale, who later made the first flight over Everest, and Maxine ‘Blossom’ Freeman-Thomas, who married Miles in 1932 and became his partner in design. The Martlet led Miles to Phillips & Powis at Woodley, near Reading, where his Hawk, Magister and Master monoplanes followed.

This airframe

Southern Martlet G-AAYX

G-AAYXThe airframe modelled

G-AAYX was the second production Martlet, built at Shoreham in 1930 with a 100 hp Genet Major engine and untapered ailerons. F.G. Miles owned it for several years and flew it from Woodley as his personal aircraft. After the Second World War the Butlins holiday-camp company used it for displays, mainly at its camp at Pwllheli in north Wales, and it then spent more than thirty years in store. The Shuttleworth Collection acquired it, and a long restoration by its engineers and volunteers from the Shuttleworth Veteran Aeroplane Society ended when it flew again on 25 September 2000; it is now on display at Old Warden and flies at the summer air displays. The model shows it as displayed and flown there, standing tail-down on its wheels and tail skid: red fuselage, interplane struts and wheel discs, a natural aluminium nose round the uncowled Genet Major, silver-doped wings and tailplane, a white fin and rudder with a red leading-edge band and five red wedges running aft, white ‘G-AAYX’ on both sides of the fuselage, navy ‘G-A’ and ‘AYX’ across the upper wing, black cabane and undercarriage, and a wooden airscrew with cream blades and copper-sheathed edges. The shape follows Don Luck’s 1:7 scale plan of G-AAYX in Aviation Modeller International (June 1996), scaled to the published span, with the engine, airscrew, interplane struts and markings taken from photographs of G-AAYX.

See it at The Shuttleworth Collection

Where to see one

In the gazetteer

The gazetteer records the Martlet in one UK collection. The airframe modelled here is marked.

Every airframe and serial All 225 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.