The Martin-Baker company is one of the most successful and enduring names in aviation. This is because it is the world’s leading manufacturer of ejection seats. You wouldn’t have bet on its survival. It’s been nearly seventy years since the company last built an aircraft, and it never put an aircraft into production. The tiny handful of prototypes it did build are well known only to committed aviation enthusiasts. All of which represents something of a tragic waste.
In 1929 an Ulsterman, Jimmy Martin, decided that he wanted to build great aircraft. The self-taught son of a farmer, he really had no qualifications for doing so except self-belief and a God-given genius for aircraft design. In 1934, with his friend the First World War flying ace Valentine Baker, he set up Martin-Baker Aircraft. Their first aircraft, the MB1, pioneered new construction techniques. But Martin wanted to build fighters. In the minds of the Air Ministry, that was a job for the established big boys like Hawker, Supermarine, or Gloster. And I suppose you can see the ministry’s point. With war looming, it must have seemed risky to divert money and resources to a cottage industry like Martin-Baker. It was a bad decision, though.
Working on a shoestring and forced to use a temperamental Napier Sabre engine that was not of his choosing, Martin designed an outstanding fighter, the MB3, which was heavily armed, fast, maneuverable, and easy to maintain. But when that troublesome engine failed, the MB3 crashed, killing Val Baker. Despite the devastating loss of his friend, James Martin persevered. And the next design to be built, the MB5, turned out to be his masterpiece, an aircraft considered by many to be the finest piston-engined fighter ever. As one contemporary noted, the sleek MB5 “looked like a cross between a Mustang and a V2 rocket.”
The test pilot Eric Brown pronounced it “outstanding,” saying he felt so completely at home after climbing into the cockpit for the first time that “I might have already flown hundreds of hours in it-a compliment I could pay to no other new type of advanced aircraft.”
But piston-engined perfection came too late. Lacking the support and investment that might have hastened its construction, it was already clear in May 1944, when Martin’s wonderful machine first took to the air, that the jet age had begun.
I’m pleased that the Martin-Baker company makes the world’s best ejection seats, but it’s a thought always tinged with regret that, given the opportunity, it might also have built some of the world’s best airplanes.
