Swinderby 1957 E Flight Stan Sollitt leading
Very easy to fly. 6.15 to first solo with only 95 hours total. All our course made it through. Wings with 201 hours.
Never a great fan of the Vampire. The 11 was exceedingly uncomfortable and no spinning or negative g in the 5.
Second single seat solo was my only flight in the 9.
Gear, flap and speedbrake all hidden away in the back left hand corner. Very easy to get the wrong lever so speedbrake was deployed with a clenched fist as the other two had detents.
The ramp could be spectacular at night with lots of wet starts.
My memory ( possibly defective) was the high speed dive problem was caused by the tailplane skin movement producing blanketing shock waves so the elevator was ineffective until the Mach No.reduced. Thought the mod was to replace with heavier duty Venom tailplanes. Whatever, my instructor had the dubious honour of doing the post mod airtests.
What a treat to go to the Meteor.