Miloch wrote:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_X-1
> "American author Richard P. Hallion has cast doubts on the British
> contribution to the X-1, countering the British view that the X-1 design
> benefitted from work on the M.52, and stating the X-1 was flying before
> the British handed over the M.52 data following its cancellation.
But: "By 1944, design of the M.52 was 90% complete and Miles was told
to go ahead with the construction of three prototypes. Later that year, the
Air Ministry signed an agreement with the United States to exchange high-
speed research and data. Miles' Chief Aerodynamicist Dennis Bancroft
stated that Bell Aircraft was given access to the drawings and research
on the M.52".
(Ibid.)
The first XS1 flight was later, in January 1946, and subsonic. It was not
until late 1947 that a redesigned X-1 with a variable-incidence tailplane
achieved Mach 1.
The U.S. reneged on the agreement to exchange, and, in her desire to
be the first to "break the sound barrier", clammed up about her progress;
she was not going to attribute success to any British research.
Yeager has been similarly disingenuous about this. Reading him one might
think that he came up with the idea of the variable-incidence tailplane.
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