Gloster Meteor Display Teams

The passage of time is against me here but several years (probably 20), a person who was a near neighbour said he had been a member of a Meteor Sqn, and flew in a four ship display team. Part of the display was a horizontal bomb burst from a diamond formation, his part in the act was from the inverted, then pull down into a half loop, except during practice the leader had not allowed sufficient height so he hit the ground fairly hard, both engines swallowed earth and stopped but the aircraft became airbourne again and flew on into the next field where a farmer came over and told him he couldnt land there.
He also said that sometimes sorties would last a bit too long and fuel became very critical, they would then shut down one engine so that when fuel did run out they knew which way the swing would be.

Richard

My grandad was an instrument mechanic on 263 Sqn.
I’ll see if he recalls the name.

I asked and he does recall the name.
Can anybody else help on finding out information about 263 Sqn during it’s meteor service time.

Not sure, but I think Driffield was the first Meteor display team, but was unofficial and wasn’t promoted (?). The T7 was introduced in 1949.

Does anyone know what was the first JET display team?

Phil Rhodes

I’m glad to see someone still has a copy of my book!

Regretablly no photo’s, but I am interested if you have any other details please.

Sorry, all I have is the memory of a brilliant display and my log book entry. The aircraft were in normal silver finish with yellow training bands..I’m sure there’s a photo of another 4 FTS Meteor in one of my books so I’ll see if I can locate it and post it here.
Found it! It’s WA763 from “Meteor:Gloster’s First Jet Fighter” by Steven J.Bond 1985.Also in this book is a photo of 203 AFS Driffield’s display team (WL413/X-68,WF881/X-55, WL361/X-71 and WF776/X-54) taken in 1953. There’s another photo of this team in the Warpaint meteor book.
Hope this helps,
Jim

4 FTS RAF Worksop had a team in 1957. They displayed that year at RAF Acklington’s BoB Display with four aircraft:- 2 T7s WF829/10 and WL478/6 and 2 F(T)8s WF662/22 and WK741/17.
Does anyone have a photo of them????
Jim

Regretablly no photo’s, but I am interested if you have any other details please.

In 1956, the Royal Netherlands Air Force had a team of Meteor F.8s called “Diamonds Four”. Corgi make a diecast model of one.

WL181

Yeah, it’s WL181 of the Evergreens (College of Air Warfare RAF Manby/Strubby), now with the North East Aircraft Museum. Very nice to see such a nice photo of her!!!

LL … That picture from Colin Laurie, at Turnhouse 1960’s is all the info I have. Keith.

That looks pretty much like an Evergreen. Manby?

Showing my complete lack of knowledge about military hardware, found this, almost the correct serial ??? Keith.

My Father FLEW THE NO 3 SLOT IN THIS 3 SHIP TEAM, 263 SQN RAF WATTISHAM, LED BY FLT LT PETER LATHAM he later led the Black Arrows hope this Helps, they were camoflagued Mk8s

My grandad was an instrument mechanic on 263 Sqn.
I’ll see if he recalls the name.

Here are a couple of shots from my uncle’s album from when he was CO of 222 Squadron at Leuchars in 1952.

A shaky ground shot of 43 Squadron.

…and a shot of 222 Squadron taken from a T.7 being flown by uncle.

Mark

4 FTS RAF Worksop had a team in 1957. They displayed that year at RAF Acklington’s BoB Display with four aircraft:- 2 T7s WF829/10 and WL478/6 and 2 F(T)8s WF662/22 and WK741/17.
Does anyone have a photo of them????
Jim

it was the ever greens, thanks for the help, now for the second question…does anyone have any information/images of WL181 in her display team livery?

Evergreens. Ray was team leader and possibly flew 181 when she was the lead ship in the team. Your own archives have a picture of her. Standard camo pattern with a large dayglo section covering the nose – sweeping curves too – very nice. If she was Ray’s aircraft, when you CAREFULLY peel back the paint close to the cockpit, you might find the remains of Ray’s mascot motif…. Gus Gus – the fat mouse from Disney’s Cinderella. Sarah Hanna was going to look through her dad’s log book for me earlier in the year, but must have slipped her mind. I could always give her another call.

This is the only twin engined fighter aircraft to have gone under the Tyne. (back of a truck via the Tyne tunnel from Acklington):rolleyes:

it was the ever greens, thanks for the help, now for the second question…does anyone have any information/images of WL181 in her display team livery?

unfortunatly not, i was having a conversation with a fellow NEAM member today and we were discussing our meat box, to which he stated it had flown with a display team called the green….. i cant remember the second part of the name, the box we have is rumoured to have been Ray Hanna’s old airframe, does this help any?

Prickly Balls

My Father FLEW THE NO 3 SLOT IN THIS 3 SHIP TEAM, 263 SQN RAF WATTISHAM, LED BY FLT LT PETER LATHAM he later led the Black Arrows hope this Helps, they were camoflagued Mk8s

hmm, the one im looking for had green in the title….i cant remember what it is though

Not really much help but I rememeber a “Flight” photograph of a four Meteor team being caught in front of a cloud formation that closely resembled the British Isles. The beauty of it was that the airshow was in France!!