Miles M14 Hawk Trainer 3

As the new generation of monoplane aircraft began to enter RAF service in the 1930s, the Air Ministry recognised the need for a modern elementary trainer which related to the technical advances and operational flying requirements of their future pilots.

Based on satisfactory experience with the Miles Hawk Trainers used in the Elementary Flying Training School the Air Ministry decided, unusually when they had for some years been specifying metal construction, to adopt an all wooden airframe. Thus, the Miles M14 was developed from the civil Hawk series of low-wing cantilever monoplanes and was basically a Hawk Major with enlarged cockpits to accommodate parachutes and fitted with blind flying equipment. With a low wing, meaningful stall and split flaps it mirrored the handling characteristics of the new breed of RAF fighters.

About this aircraft

For some years this aircraft bore the RAF serial V1075.  Its service career ended on 9 November 1940, when it was stored at No.51 MU at Lichfield and finally sold on 4 December 1947 for £50.

Registered G-AKPF and ‘civillanised’ by Wolverhampton Aviation Ltd, the aircraft was granted its original Certificate of Airworthiness on 23 April 1948. It had a mixed career as a flying school aircraft, mostly with Air Schools Ltd of  Wolverhampton. Logbooks suggest it was damaged and rebuilt a number of times, and after a substantial crash in May 1955 parts including the fuselage, centre sections, tail surfaces and flaps from another Magister were used to  restore it to airworthiness.

Ron Paine flew the aircraft to victory in the Magister Race at Thruxton on 21 August 1949. It gained third place in the 1958 King’s Cup air race, with a speed of 128 mph. It left RAF Wattisham on 1 May 1962 and was stored in a wingless, semi-derelict state at Hadleigh before being sold in 1969 for £80.

Uncompleted restoration began on it by the East Anglian Aviation Society in 1970, the project passing to Adrian Brook in 1989 for completion at Shoreham where he made the first post-restoration flight on 21 July 1990.

After several years of inactivity the aircraft was bought by Peter Holloway in 2001. The aircraft came to Old Warden the same year and work carried out on it has included restoring the correct identity of its 1938 fuselage. The aircraft now belongs to David Bramwell.

Specification