thing,
I believe what you heard about the Meteor 7 was true - I heard the same story, going through the Conversion at 203 AFS, Driffield, in early '50.
But, the (incredible) practice at first was to do asymmetric training with one flamed out (so you'd "burned your boats", if the approach went wrong there was no way out or back - and no "bang" seat either).
In the version told to me, it was an AM statistician who first noticed that that the accident rate from this practice exceeded the failiure rate of Derwent engines. When this became known, sanity returned; (thankfully, by the time I came along) practices were done with an idling engine - and that was bad enough !
A contributory factor in the carnage was that the "new boys" had been trained on Oxfords on their previous SFTSs before they came to AFS. They weren't given a fair crack of the whip. (This continued to '53 to my knowledge).
We "old men" were much better off (I'd flown Harvard, Hurricane, Spitfire and P47 -Thunderbolt, beside my Vengeance dive-bomber) - and it wasn't easy for me.
My opinion (on very little experience): the Meteor was a pussycat on two or one above 200 kts - much below that (particularly on one) it was all kinds of bitch. The Vampire was a pussycat - always.
IMHO, there's the major cause of the training accident rate in those years.
Danny.
"The past is a foreign country - they do things differently there"
Last edited by Danny42C; 20th Feb 2014 at 23:45.
Reason: Afterthought.