The Hawks Miller HM-1 design featured a streamlined shape, including the unusual feature of "burying" the cockpit with a curved windshield contoured to fit the fuselage top, that was extended for takeoff and landing, but retracted in flight, with the pilot's seat lowered and the windshield flush with the fuselage.

The streamlined tail skid was aluminum in its upper part and at the bottom made of Stellite, a substance for protecting metals subjected to excessive wear.

[1] After its first flight on October 18, 1936, Hawks flew "Time Flies", from Hartford, Connecticut, to Miami, Florida, on April 13, 1937, in 4 hours and 55 minutes.

[3] The principals of Tri-American Aviation, Leigh Wade and Edward Connerton, engaged Miller to rebuild the aircraft in 1938 as a two-seater with a greenhouse canopy added.

In essentially military configuration with dummy machine guns fitted, Wade flew the aircraft to a fourth-place finish.