George Herbert Miles was born on 28 July 1911 at Portslade, Sussex, the youngest of four sons of Frederick Gaston Miles, a laundry proprietor of the Star Model Laundry, Portslade-by-Sea, and his wife Esther (née Wicks), and youngest brother to Frederick George Miles. After leaving Hove College, on 24 February 1930 George joined his brother F.G.’s Southern Aircraft Ltd at Shoreham for 15 shillings per week, to manage the fast-developing aircraft works, flying school and joyride business. On 20 March 1931 he gained his RAeC Aviators Certificate, No. 9759, flying a de Havilland Moth at the Southern Aero Club.

With F.G. Miles having left in 1932 to join Phillips and Powis, George was left in charge of Southern Aircraft, but in May 1936 he finally re-joined his brother at Woodley as a test pilot and manager of the engine section, having wound up Southern Aircraft and the Southern Aero Club at Shoreham. Phillips and Powis had obtained a licence agreement for American Menasco engines, and Georges first job was to fly a Hawk Trainer fitted with a Menasco Pirate for long periods on full throttle to test the engines’ reliability. In the end, no Menasco engines were to be built by Phillips and Powis.

George Miles’ first design for the company was the Monarch, which first flew in February 1938, and around November 1938, he was appointed manager of the Repair and Service Department.

In June 1939 George married Corinne M Mackenzie.

Prior to Rolls Royce divesting its interest in Phillips and Powis Aircraft in April 1941, F.G. Miles had concerned himself mainly with technical matters but, with the business now in the hands of the Miles family, F.G. had to turn his attention to administration and George took over the duties of Technical Director and Chief Designer. George was to become responsible for most of the wartime and post-war designs.

During the war, George took responsibility for the Experimental Department at Liverpool Road, Reading. There, he was responsible for the design of five types featuring ‘LR’ (for Liverpool Road) designations (LR-1 through LR-4, plus the post-war LR-6 – see Miles company entry for details). Along with these, George was also responsible for the Martinet and Monitor, along with Miles post-war transports. His last design with Miles Aircraft was the M.74 Messenger Minor of 1947.

In 1947, Miles Aircraft Ltd went into receivership. George Miles moved to Airspeed, and in 1949 became chief designer from a retiring Arthur Hagg. Among the aircraft which he helped to build for them was the Ambassador, known to airline passengers as the British European Airways Elizabethan. In 1953 he left Airspeed and returned to Shoreham, where he re-joined his brother at his firm F.G. Miles Engineering. He also became a director of F.G. Miles later companies, Miles Electronics and Miles Structural Plastics.

When, in 1960, Beagle Aircraft was set up to build light aeroplanes, George Miles, by then a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, became the company's Technical Director. Three years later he left to establish his own aircraft engineering business, Miles Aviation and Transport of Shoreham.

In 1966 Miles Aviation and Transport planned to build an amphibious car, designed by Charles Vinten, but this was to come to nothing. In 1966 the company carried out a feasibility study for the Ministry of Aviation of scheme proposed by Michael Bird for a rail-air link between London and Paris using a transferable module which would allow the passengers to stay in the same seats throughout the journey, on both monorail and in the aircraft; considerable saving of time for the journey was expected; another project that amounted to nothing.

Following the final the demise of Beagle, George, as chairman of Miles Aviation and Transport Ltd, bid, unsuccessfully, for the Shoreham part of the business, which had orders for 58 Bulldogs. Then he concentrated on Miles Electronics and Miles Marine and Structural Plastics.

George Herbert Miles died in August 1987 in Richmond Upon Thames.

1. ancestry.com
2. Miles Aircraft - The Early Years, Peter Amos (Air Britain (Historians), 2009)
3. Miles Aircraft - The Wartime Years, Peter Amos (Air Britain (Historians), 2012)
4. Miles Aircraft - The Post-War Years, Peter Amos (Air Britain (Historians), 2016)
5. http://www.hatfield-herts.co.uk/aviation/airspeed_people2.html
6. Graces Guide