Folland Midge
The Folland Midge was a jet -powered fighter aircraft prototype of the British manufacturer Folland Aircraft Limited.
General
The famous aircraft designer WEW Petter developed as part of the planning of the Folland Gnat to an Armstrong Siddeley Viper turbojet engine with a thrust of 7.3 kN as a Folland Midge Fo.139 ( small mosquito ) designated prototype to the drive concept of the planned Gnat proof to ask.
The first flight of Midge took place on August 11, 1954. Under the following flight testing a swoop was carried out in supersonic speed and thus demonstrates the maturity of the concept. Different from several Air Force pilots were given the opportunity to test the machine, and found consistently good things about the flight characteristics and performance of Midge.
The prototype crashed with his Swiss pilots on 26 September 1955 a fault in the machine could not be found.
The obtained during 220 test flights experiences with the Midge were helpful for Folland in the later development of jet aircraft Gnat school.