Miles M.30

The Miles M.30 X-Minor was an experimental aircraft, designed by Miles Aircraft to evaluate the characteristics of blended fuselage and wing intersections.

Design and development
Begun in 1938, the X series of designs was Miles designation M.26, covering a wide range of aircraft designs from small feeder-liners to very large 8-engined transatlantic transports.

To investigate the design philosophy of the blended wing/body Miles was given a contract to design and build a sub-scale flying model of the X.9 design, which emerged as the M.30 X-Minor. The small size of the X Minor made it impossible to follow the buried engine design exactly; the engines were too large and had to be mounted externally, resulting in an aircraft similar in layout but differing in aerodynamics. The X Minor first flew in February 1942, providing Miles with useful data for several years. A larger scale prototype of the X transport was planned but never built.