Originally Posted by
Bonkey
At what point to these Meteor's become just uneconomical / dangerous to keep airworthy? Surprised that by now they have not switched to something like a couple of surplus Hawk's for example.
Plus how cost effective is it for M-B to continue to maintain their own airfield when for the amount of flying they do they could surely set up residence at somewhere like Northolt, Benson, Farnborough, Odiham etc - all of those being within a 15-45 minute drive from their HQ at Denham.
The problem you have is a Hawk is a single engine, so when you bang out a seat the engine ingests all that lovely smoke and debris, not an ideal outcome, that is why the meteor is still in use, it is a reliable, strong aircraft, with wing mounted engines out of the way of the smoke ingestion, stronger more damage resistant engines being centrifugal, has a speed range suitable for testing most seats... If you write a spec for a tandem seat, twin engine wing pod mounted aircraft, rugged and simple to operate with a sufficent speed range to carry out the tests you come back to the Meteor, there simply isn't anything else out there.