Miles Mercury

The Miles M.28 Mercury was a British aircraft designed to meet the need for a training and communications plane during the Second World War. It was a single-engined monoplane of wooden construction with a twin tail and a tailwheel undercarriage with retractable main units.
Development.
Originally, the M.28 had been planned as a replacement for the Whitney Straight and Monarch, but this was shelved when war broke out.
In 1941, the project was revived in response to a requirement for a training and communications aircraft. The design was produced as a private venture by Ray Bournon using Miles' normal wooden construction. The resulting machine introduced several features not found on trainers: retractable undercarriage and trailing edge flaps amongst others. In the communications role, the M.28 had four seats and a range of .
The prototype first flew on 11 July 1941 and proved easy to fly, with light controls and a short landing run. Owing to Miles' heavy commitment to war-production, however, only six aircraft were built, of slightly varying specifications, the last being the Mercury 6 which first flew in early 1946. Examples of the type were operated in the United Kingdom, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland and Australia.