Who do you know who would be daft enough to want to do that? Ejections are only slightly less violent than the crash you are avoiding! Rgds Cking

Agreed! Why the heck would anyone want to do that?

Back in the day when ejection seats were first introduced into the RAF, there was a traveling ejection simulator on a trailer. The contraption had an almost vertical rail with a real ejection seat attached.

A pilot sat in the seat in full gear, pulled the blind/handle over his face, the cartridge went off and shot the seat to the top of the rail.

I recall it happening so fast that there was no sensation of shooting up. One moment I was at the bottom, BANG, then at the top.

Like many others, I had a backache afterwards, and they soon discontinued the practice, presumably due to injuries. I wouldn’t be surprised if some pilots were permanently injured.

Spruce Goose

Here are a couple of shots I took in 2005 showing its humungous size.

…. they gave us a glider to shoot at…..

That would be one of these, with a 25′ wingspan. We tested them at FWS in the hope that they could be used with radar-ranging gunsights rather than the usual 30′ flags, and of course they also looked more realistic.

Trouble was they were more expensive and when damaged could do more harm if they came apart or broke away when returning to base over the heads of the general population.

They also took time and trouble to takeoff and land.

When landing them, the Meteor tow pilot had to be talked down (preferably not onto the runway in use) by someone in the the tower or caravan and then he dropped the towline at the appropriate moment. This sometimes resulted in the landed glider running fast and unpredictably across the airfield. I saw one hit a hut full of workmen on a tea break – they shot out of the door like ants out of a nest but were unharmed.

Another time I was talked down short of the runway and the tow line ended up across a main railway, resulting in trains being delayed while a railway crew arrived to clear the line – they wouldn’t let the RAF do it.

We also used these gliders to demonstrate air-to-air shooting to pilots taking the Pilot Attack Instructor (PAI) course. The pupils were bused out to the coast range and then watched as a couple of us instructors, using operational ammo, shot down the glider (stuffed with fuel-soaked rags) as it was being towed past.

The idea was to see it go down in flames in front of the awe-stricken pupils but these demos rarely went as planned.

I never saw a glider actually catch fire despite the use of incendiary and tracer rounds, and sometimes it took several passes before the glider showed any effect, which left the watchers less than impressed. Lots of fun for all, though!

Air to ground at night

Air to ground at night in a Mozzie NF?? I Can’t imagine what that must have been like and I’m glad were certainly never required to practice it! It was very rare that our squadron ever did any air-to-air live practice in the NF versions of either Mozzies or Meteors.

After all, they mainly designed to creep up behind the enemy at night and shoot at close range, not do any high quarter attacks in daylight. The guns and gunsights were adequate for stern attacks, but we were still practicing outdated WWII tactics even though our aircraft performance was virtually useless against the actual Russian threats of the day.

Re the difference in accuracy between the Mossie and the Meteor NF. I don’t think it really differed, the variance between pilots abilities was greater than that between the two aircraft…

I have just lucked onto this forum and have been reading your posts with great interest, Peter, as we seem to have been contemporaries. I went through 228 UCU Leeming in Jan 1950 as a pilot, where I teamed up with Sgt. George Jane, my navrad. We then joined 264 Sqdn. at Linton, which was still flying Mosquito NF36s.

Re gunnery, I was later posted as an instructor at Fighter Weapons School, Leconfield in the 1950s and soon joined the Trials Flight there, where we carried out numerous trials of gunsights, targets and techniques etc. I flew most marks of Meteor during that time, plus various marks of the fighters of that era – e.g. Hunter, Vampire, F86 Sabre and Venom.

I won’t nitpick your comments on gunnery of that era, apart from saying that the Meteor NFs were definitely poor performers in air-to-air gunnery for various technical reasons, regardless of pilot, particularly when compared to the Meteor F8.