Did a Meteor ever go Supersonic?

[Legalapproach]

Pilots notes for the NF 11/14 read
Above 10,000 feet
With ventral tank only. As speed is increased there is a slight nose-up change of trim. At 0.78M the flying controls become very heavy and general airframe buffeting commences. At about 0.79M either wing may drop slowly necessitating a very strong restraining force. Moderate rudder buffeting commences at 0.81M and porpoising may occur. At this stage the control forces are so heavy that 0.81M is the practical limit to which the aircraft may be flown.
Maximum speeds are shown as:
a) Sea level to 10,000 feet 430 Kts
b) 10,000 to 29,000 0.78M
c) above 29,000 No limit for structural reasons: only limited by controlability

[advocatusDIABOLI]

Firstly,

Bob, you are correct sir, my maths was pants! I really should be ashamed.

Secondly,

Bof, Nice of you, but I'm really not that young!! My experience however is in Interceptors that can go Supersonic Up Hill!!

Finally, I have enjoyed reading all the posts, particularly the reminiseses. My conclusion is this:

It couldn't happen, without someone having a really bad day . Actually, it probably couldn't happen at all, as the bad day would happen first at about 0.9M. The only problem now is how to break the news to the 'old fella'. I'll probably go with the 'At Home Day story', I liked that one!!!

Please feel free to continue telling stories of your times on Meteors!

Regards to all,

Advo

[Bof]

AD
Supersonic uphill!! - Now you really are pulling our legs! You'll be telling us you had Inertial navigation next, or shooting at aircraft more than 300 yds away, or flying above 40 thou. That's the trouble with modern younger aviators - can't tell a tale without exagerating!

And as for all those figures from an NF pilot's notes. How can my 50 year memory cope with that! 'Course, if I sat in one tomorrow it would all come back in a flash! Cor, supersonic uphill! I should co-co!!

[forget]

The only problem now is how to break the news to the 'old fella'.

You won't do it. You'll have a beer with him, or whatever you two drink, and next time the super-sonic Meteor is mentioned, you'll nod, and sip on whatever you two drink. Tell me I'm wrong when it's happened.

[phil gollin]

As we are talking of old Meteors, how about this.

The main visual difference between the F.III and F.4 was the longer nacelles on the engines. Supposedly some of the last production F.IIIs were produced with longer nacelles.

Does anyone know which airframe numbers these were and when the production line change occured.

(If people don't know the answer, do they know where any Meteor experts are located so that I could ask them)

Thanks

[XV277]

The last 15 F3s produced had the longer F4 style nacelles.

I don't have the serials to hand, and there's no guarantee that the number order equates to the production order!

I'll have a look in a couple of books later

[forget]

Good stuff here -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloster_Meteor

No. 616 Squadron RAF received the first Meteor F 3 on 18 December 1944. This was a substantial improvement over the Meteor F 1, but the basic design still had not reached its full potential. Wind tunnel and flight tests demonstrated that the original short nacelles that extended just before and behind the wing, contributed heavily to compressibility buffeting at high speed. New, longer nacelles not only cured some of the compressibility problems but added 120 km/h (75 mph) at altitude, even without upgraded powerplants. The last batch of Meteor F 3s featured the longer nacelles while other F 3s were retrofitted in the field with the new nacelles. The F 3 also had the new Rolls-Royce Derwent engines, increased fuel capacity, and a new larger, more strongly raked bubble canopy.

[BEagle]

Were the longer nacelles the ones I've heard referred to as 'heavy breathers'?

Mind you, for long Meteor nacelles, you'd be pushed to beat these:

Meteor IV RA490 with twin 'deflected jet' Nene 101s, RAF Merryfield 1953/54. Later trials showed that it could be flown at speeds down to 70KIAS.....

Wouldn't want to lose one at low speed on the approach.....

[Green Flash]

Reminds me of a story my Dad (ex mob) told me. Whilst visiting his folks in the north of York he heard a 'boom' above the clouds and a Meteor came howling out of a high cloud base, engines going full chat and ploughed into the ground just north east of York aerodrome, near the York/Scarborough railway line. Nothing left. Think this happened early '50's.

[henry crun]

Beagle: At one point in the production of the Mk 7, and all Mks after that, the intakes were increased in diameter.
These were generally known as deep breathers.

Perhaps these were what you heard called heavy breathers.

[Topofclimb]

Don't forget you don't need to be at Mach 1 to have parts of the airframe supersonic. I've seen small shock waves forming as low as .7 something so its quite possible that a high speed dive at .8 and a hard pull could produce some form of shock waves on the aircraft although whether that would make a "boom" I'm not sure although I think its highly likely!

[normally right blank]

The quite loud "bang bang" windowrattling crack of a supersonic pass - mostly high level ones -was quite characteristic. Almost never heard today. (Except when an F-something get too involved in a dogfight, and the tropopause is not as predicted. ) But there was the Meteor "blue note"! It certainly stopped you in your tracks. They seemed to go pretty "high speed", but were probably slowing for landing (and in idle?). (I lived for 20 years 3 NM North of Karup, EKKA). The Hunter had something similar, but not so "deep". Hunter example: Two Hunters on "rat patrol" catching four G-91's and "gunning" them: Strange deep howl from the Avons' slowing to the Fiats' full out speed. In 25 years daily listening to Drakens I heard the same thing only a handful of times. (It had an Avon 200 engine). But the Meteor was something else - though hopefully never "near" supersonic. It would have been fatal. (Danish total losses pr. 10.000 flying hours: Meteor 4 - 9.13. F-16 - 0.45. Meteor 7's unknown, but 7 lost of 9. One scrapped, one preserved. Seven crashed. First loss after 4 months pulling the wings off in a high speed pull up.

[The_Baron]

I believe that the 'blue note' was something to do with the gun ports. Certainly the Meteor produced a great sound at 500 KIAS +; the Hunter also produced a blue note - but at a greater speed - around 600 KIAS I think. The blue note was always a feature of a 'beat up' if you could get away with it. Perhaps Whooligan can shed some light on the Hunter blue note.

[Gainesy]

Used to get the blue note from 45 and 58 Sqn's Hunters at Wittering and the run and break was nowhere near 600.

[Bof]

And you did't need anything near 500+ on a Meteor either.

[Dr Jekyll]

Getting slightly off topic here, but why was the meteor designed with the engines so far apart? I would have thought that engines closer to the wing root would have improved handling response and single engine behaviour. It seems especially odd since early jet engines would presumably be expected to be relatively unreliable.
The same question also applies to the canberra of course.

[Gainesy]

The mindset of leaving room for the props on a twin-engined aircraft?

[Green Flash]

Given that early jets wern't the most flexible of things, perhaps the airflow outboard was cleaner than round the nose/down the sides, therefore leaving the motors less prone to intake turbulence and flameout? Me no expert, mind. Or maybe gas ingestion from the guns?

[BEagle]

Presumably, the Meteor's undercarriage had to go somewhere and couldn't be included in the nacelles (as on the Mosquito) for obvious reasons. Moving the engines inboard and the undercarriage outboard would need a much stronger outer wing section due to root bending moments - and longer undercarriage legs as well due to dihedral etc? Which would have limited the available payload or performance. So, fix the undercarrriage location and place the engine carrying structure immediately outboard?

Then do something similar on the Canberra?

But the CF-100 designers obviously learned a trick or two from such British eccentricity!

[Mike Read]

Meteors

My last flight in a Meteor (and in the RAF) was in June 1969 ferrying one of Chivenor's TT Flt a/c to St Mawgan prior to a runway resurface at Chiv. I had been a regular Meteor pilot since my first flight in a Mk 7 at Valley in 1951 and from 1952 had been a Meteor QFI/IRE. I have never heard anyone suggest it is possible for the beast to go much more than .8m. Latterly, i.e. up to my retirement, it was considered unwise to exceed 400 kts ias. If you had ever spun one and heard the moans and groans from even a relatively new airframe and then wound one of these old ladies up to the 400 mark and heard similar noises with modest amounts of "g" you would have not wanted to go any faster.

As for the "blue note", a flight of them joining the circuit at about 350k for a break and landing was a sweet sound. The object of the break was to enable a/c to maintain a tactical battle formation as long as possible and then spend as short a time as possible in the circuit. Hence run in on the deck, then pull up into the circuit throttles closed, airbrakes out decelerating and flying as tight a pattern as you could. The experts leading would almost make a glide approach and those following would aim to be about 500yds apart for touchdown and if all four aircraft weren't on the runway together by the time the lead reached the end questions would be asked. Any speed above about 350k would result in a rather too large circuit. It was all great fun but really not terribly practical.

Incidentally I recently saw the Martin Baker 7/8 fly over my house at a very sedate speed. It brought a lump to my throat!