It was very rare that our squadron ever did any air-to-air live practice in the NF versions of either Mozzies or Meteors.
I have had a trawl back through my logbooks and would say that in Egypt we had a firing exercise approx every two months, in addition to the annual three weeks in Cyprus on the APC, which was devoted solely to air to air firing.
In the UK air to air firing averaged out at every three months, plus again annual visits to the APC at Acklington. The APC jaunts were great holidays for us navs and in Cyprus much time would be spent in bars and night clubs.
In addition to these exercises I note entries occasionally for “air into air”, where generally all four guns were loaded and would be fired off at high altitude, no doubt to test the guns and possibly get rid of outdated ammo. One of these was the only occasion that I actually fired the guns of a Mossie. We sat cosily together so I just had to reach over and press the tit when instructed.
Another tale concerns a sortie at Acklington when they gave us a glider to shoot at. These had a Y shaped divided tow line, which hitched to hooks at about a third span of the glider. As normal, four aircraft were firing in turn and the very first man hit one arm of the Y tow. As a result the glider flew one wing well down and nose pointing about 30 degrees from its line of flight. My pilot, Joe, tried his damndest to hit the thing, lining his sight up on the tug and then letting it run back down the towline, but still couldn’t hit it. He was extremely cross, and let fly with a bit of Polish, but even that did not work. That was the only occasion when he did not get a score in all the time I flew with him
Sign In
