Yes, this was built and, yes, this flew - but badly is the adverb appropriate to both! So in these circumstances, I trust that the moderators will cut me some slack and allow me to post here extracts from an obscure, and long defunct, post-war British general aviation periodical, The Light Plane & Private Owner, of 1947.
This aeroplane was designed by and built at the Liverpool Road (hence the L.R. prefix - the number 5 reflecting the fact that it was the fifth design to emanate from that facility), Reading factory of Miles Aircraft in 1944/45 and was aimed at the perceived post-war market for club, training and private owner aeroplanes. It was first flown on 3 June 1945 by George Miles, but it did not fly well (it might be fairer to say that it flew dangerously) and the nature of its problem would have necessitated a complete fuselage redesign. This, combined with the pressure of work under which Miles Aircraft was at the time, meant that development of the aeroplane was not pursued and subsequently it was quietly abandoned and ultimately it was broken up at Woodley in 1948.
The M.64/L.R.5 made only one public appearance, which was the White Waltham 'Light Plane Show' on 18 January 1947. This was reported extensively in The Light Plane & Private Owner of February 1947 (Vol. 1, No. 3). Part of that report appears below, together with a photograph of the aeroplane taken at that event. Evidently the publishers of that periodical held it in high regard - whilst they may have seen it fly, presumably they did not fly it - and so the editorial in a subsequent issue (vol. 1, no. 5) was a plea to Miles Aircraft to put it into production. That editorial is reproduced below. As is now known, that plea fell on deaf ears - seemingly for very good reasons. The aeroplane was mentioned in a letter in the same issue of that periodical (see below).
The last copy which I have of The Light Plane & Private Owner is dated June 1947 (vol. 1, no. 6). Whether subsequent issues were published, I know not. Thus I do not know whether there was an issue published in 1948 which lamented the scapping of the M.64/L.R.5 that year!
