A NEW aircraft is being built at a factory belonging to Miles Aircraft, Ltd. Both the aircraft and the factory, however, are unusual, for the factory is part of a school and the new aircraft, except for its engines, is being constructed entirely by the students of the school without any aid other than consultation with their instructors. These students, whose ages are mostly between sixteen and nineteen, also designed the aircraft, and are carrying out all the detailed drawings and stresswork. [...]
In August, 1943, Mr. F. G. Miles asked the school to design and build an aircraft which could be used as a "test-bed" for an electrical automatic pilot and for other electrical equipment. A high-wing twin-engined monoplane was specified, with a tricycle undercarriage and low landing speed, and the aircraft was required to carry two pilots with additional cabin space for engineers to work at a test bench. At the time, the only students with any drawing training were girls, and twelve of them submitted general designs. The best of these designs were used as a basis for further design work. A competition to find a name for the aircraft resulted in it being aptly called Venture.
It is a tribute to the form of training which is carried on at the school that the students seem to have encountered no insurmountable difficulty in tackling so ambitious a project. The main spar, forty feet long, was set up and constructed from ply and spruce by four students unaided. Two girls, sixteen and seventeen years old respectively, with less than six months' experience, laid out and completed the line drawings of the monocoque fuselage to full size and, as can be seen from the accompanying photograph, great progress has been made. All components incidentally, are A.I.D. tested and stamped. Already a second aircraft—a high-performance sailplane, is on the students' drawing boards, and boats and canoes have been built by them as a sideline. [...]
