Beagle: You are right about the height loss.

One chap on my course at Weston Zoyland went in off the downwind leg, it all happened so quickly there did not seem to be time to effect any sort of recovery action.

Colour negative film and resultant colour prints were prohibitively expensive in those days and these two photos were among a collection I took whilst dabbling with colour positive (transparency) film.

henry - as a very small lad I often went with my father on business to Weston Zoyland (the firm was based at Merryfield) as well as Dunkeswell and Lulsgate.

One of my earliest memories was a compound stacked high with battered silver (and yellow band) painted aircraft parts. I wonder whether your colleague's Meatbox was amongst them?

Fortunately the T7s still flying from Chalgrove are actually 'Mark 7-and-a-half' models with the later F8-style fin and rudder. And they really look very smart in gloss black!

thawes - thanks very much for those photos. They are from an era when we still had a proper air force!

It was the yaw induced by lowering the gear in combination with extended airbrakes that caused the breakdown in air flow over the tail. We used to demonstrate this at a safe height at the AFSs. The syllabus summary still pasted into my logbook says: " Ex 3. Asymmetric flying critical speeds, relighting procedure and emergencies. Effect of airbrakes with asymmetric power. Simulated asymmetric overshoots, min height 5,000ft (2 sorties,1hr 20 mins dual)". The demo of unbalanced asymmetric thrust with airbrakes OUT could be quite spectacular and showed that you had no chance of correcting the situation from circuit height. Most students were taught instinctively to thump the airbrake lever forwards (IN) with their palm before going for the undercarriage handle.

(Added) I believe that mishandling of asymmetric thrust was a relatively minor cause of Meatbox accidents. Getting lost and running out of fuel was a more frequent cause. The F4s and T7s carried about 95 gals less than the F8s and FR9s. There was no navaid other than the fixes or bearings you could get on VHF. This might have been acceptable in UK where there was a highly organised fighter control organisation on the ground. But in the Middle East they really ought to have given us a radio compass, as I believe they did the RAAF aircraft. I know that 208 lost six aircraft 1954-57 due to failure of ground VHF/DF stations to respond. All forced-landed rather than ejected in Kamseen conditions. Luckily no one got hurt.

Phantom dive/
 

I was a QFI at Merryfield in 1953 till it closed, Flatus logbook in 100% correct in that it was a gear/airbrake problem.

I always used to wonder who was the snotty nosed kid who was always peering through the fence, now at long last I know it was BEagle.

Shack

I was a QFI at Tarrant Rushton until it closed in 1954. Remember our Vampire formation aeros display for you on 01/01/54 ? I believe the "phantom dive" problem could be exacerbated if a/c had no ventral tank. It could easily happen with a/b "in" at lowish speeds if the a/c yawed. "Always keep the ball in the middle, Bloggs".

shack - guilty as charged! But I wasn't old enough to be out on my own in those days. So the dashing young pilot leering at my (ex-WAAF) mum from his jet must have been you!

I was hoping to go back and take a nostalgic look at the place during the Summer - but we never got one and I didn't get any spare time!

Depressing reading all the "I was a QFI at XXXXX until it closed" notes - the stories are good but the number of aerodromes we had then makes me very annoyed at the pathetic state things are in these days.

"I was a QFI at Abingdon until it closed!"..;)

Those were the days when the Staff College was at Andover

BEagle apologise to your Mum from me please.

I'll need a shovel......

Were you one of the guys who used to enjoy themselves at the Shrubbery Hotel in Ilminster, or 'The Volunteer' at Seavington St Michael?

There was a dent in 'The Volunteers'' saloon bar ceiling caused by the late John Steele's bald pate - and it was still there in 1970!

The Volunteer yes but the Shrubbery Hotel in Ilminster brings sad memories. I don't know if it still exists or is needed but back in the early 50s the S.O.P was that if one of your students went in you as his QFI had to meet and look after the family when they came for the funeral and burial. The hotel used for their accommodation was normally the Shrubbery in Ilminster hence the memories. One of mine, not doing as he was told, made a hole near Watchett, and looking after the family and being careful in what one said to them following the inevitable question "What happened" was hard.
Until we got our Vampire 9s the attrition rate with the old 1s and 3s was bad although not as bad as with the Meatbox.

Cannot really say happy days but in lots of ways they were.

Shack - the Shrubbery still exists - it's a Best Western hotel, on the main drag. My dear old mum lives in Ilminster. The Volunteer is also still serving http://www.thevolly.co.uk/

Shack - Apologise to your mother
Beagle - I'll need a shovel
Old Dog - Wipes coffee off computer screen!!!
PS. I was a QFI at Turnhouse until it closed

Sorry Airborne Artist I was not querying if the Shrubbery still exists but if QFIs still have to look after families, badly written I feel.

Well, I was down in Zumazett yesterday, so went to find my old 'goofing spot' from whence I used to watch the jets when we had both a real air force and, later, fleet air arm:

Thanks BEagle, nearly brought tears to my old eyes!!

Talk of the casualty rates reminds of a comment in Air Chief Marshal Joubert de la Ferté's biography which was written in 1952. He remarked at upset he was during his pre war RFC days, when colleagues were killed in accidents. He explained that they were a product of a gentler Victorian age and were not inured to the thought of 'sudden and unpleasant death' which was brought on by two world wars.

That was a possible explanation for the lack of concern at the casualty rate in the fifties. After all many had been through the war and were well used to the idea of sudden and unpleasant death.

The pendulum has certainly swung the other way. Gentler times!

Corsair

You speak the truth. About 450 fatals recorded in "Meteor Eject!" sounds horrific in today's Flight Safety - conscious environment. But, as a proprtion of a total Meteor build of about 3,500 airframes (of all marks) the number did not seem excessive in the immediate post-WW2 era. And of course the students were all more scared of being suspected of LMF than they were of the aircraft. I don't recall anyone being scrubbed for LMF. Winston Churchill, when he became PM again in 1951, got a bit rattled and wrote a rude note to the Air Minister. There was never any talk of grounding the fleet. and the urgency of the expansion programme during the Korean war presumably precluded any idea of withdrawing the F4s, which had no ejection seats, from service at the AFSs. I heard somewhere that the Glosters test pilots (notably "Zura") complained loudly about the T7's lack of bang-seats. Due to problems with the canopy release mechanism, a manual bale-out from the T7 was scarcely an option, and a forced landing was almost obligatory. But at night?????

'50s flying and flight safety
 

I remember being told by an old Meteor pilot that he regarded one of the great advances in reducing the accident rate of those times was the Clean Air Act which I think was about 1956?
Even a number of years later I remember weeks of fog in the vale of York in the winter time and looking at concentric rings of soot in the ice coating on the branches of the flowering cherry trees around the mess. Even more hairy were the occasional mornings when the Staish decided to lead the morning charge of Varsities to demonstrate..... what? As the ancient Master Pilot looked across from the left hand seat muttering "I don't remember doing this a lot in the war FFS; Hang on to your hat son"
The Ancient Mariner

The Vampire T11 in `thawes`s photo was built at Hawarden and delivered between Nov52 and 56 and may have been on 54Sqdn at the time of the photo--difficult to see any colours on the front nose-wheel door. I flew it`s `clone`, ,ex-Swiss T55 (U-1230) about 18 months ago, on a gear down ferry from B`mth,after it had been bought,and was in 54 Sqdn colours,red/white chequers on fuselage, and tail-booms.
Minimum rpm on finals -5500, until assured of landing--Pilot`s Notes

After a refurb I did the airtests for the CAA for it`s Permit- not without some drama,as on the first airtest , just after `gear-up` the `fire` warning illuminated, but the audio did not go off( Swiss a/c have an audio fire warning as well as the light-)-quick circuit,r/t to check if there`s any smoke trail,throttle back, light goes out-,
HP cock off as we cross the threshold , and coast to a halt, open canopy and survey the scene- no smoke, no fire,no smell of burning. Further
investigations revealed nothing to show any excess hot air/gas leaks,and ground running could not reproduce the fault. Same thing happened next flight.Anyway, the situation resloved itself after one of the lower compressor cans was changed and the cockpit wiring combining/junction boxes were recleaned, and all went well after that. The a/c now resides in Norway..Syc

PS-Always expect the unexpected, and dont stop a Vampire on tarmac... but that`s another story!

Just to confirm it happened at Middleton St George, not Driffield.

Meteor Phantom Dive
 

Probably caused by Fatigue failure in the tail plane, which had two spars. The whole assembly was tested for strength, but they had not accounted for a halving in the components strength when the skin would rip starting at rivet holes There's a paper in the Cranfield archive C.P No. 88 (14,192) A.R.C. Technical Report from May 1951, that details the errors the designers made when calculating the stresses on this component,

Meteor accidents - 1953
 

Flatus Veteranus: What was the Christian name of Master Pilot Morton, whom I believe flew with your Meteor team?

Safe Life to Fail Safe
 

The change of design strategy from Safe Life to Fail Safe is the other probable reason for the reduction in fatalities that reach a peak in '52 '53. at 330+ fatalities, which fell to 42 deaths in 1960. The Americans were the first to see the problem with Safe - Life because it could not guarantee safety in a catastrophic failure. All U.K A/c designed after '56 are 'Fail Safe' See this article from '56 which is a report about a talk given to RAeS by a chief engineer from Lockheed, he delivers a 'coup de grace' to the Safe Life strategy 1956 | 0396 | Flight Archive 1956 | 0397 | Flight Archive 1956 | 0398 | Flight Archive 1956 | 0399 | Flight Archive The Valiant was Safe Life with an airframe made from DTD683 which could and did fail catestrophically as in XD864 and probably a few others. The Shackleton and Argosy were two others that were potentially compromised in this way, but they unlike the Valiant were redesigned and rebuilt to fail safe. I have no information about what happened to the Meteor, but it would have been designed to safe-life.

Flying Officer Norman, in 1951, was reported to have crashed his Meatbox, bounced off his own car and then into his own room, where he sadly met his end, following a failed single engined roller landing. He is reputed to still be occupying the old Officers' mess (now hotel) at RAF Middleton St. George. Spend the night there and he might come and pin you down in your bed, just like he supposedly was by falling masonry :ooh:

Meteor accidents.
 

K.Whyjelly was so right in his contribution, back in 2007.

>in the vain hope of getting a scarified young girl to seek protection in the strong manly arms of the hunky flightcrew!!!<

He referred, along with others, to the kindly apparition forced to spend his days terrifying any new cabin staff who used his old room in the west wing of the OM, now the St George Hotel.

I actually completed my Vampire night flying at M.St.G, whilst going through FTS at Linton in about October, 1962.

I was then subsequently detached regularly to Durham TeesValley Intergalactic Spaceport, (or MME to the cognicenti) whilst with an airline ( they paid more !), in the late 70s/early 80s.

On numerous occasions I have actually seen tears from female cabin crew when they found they couldn't have their allocated room changed and, yes, strong manly arms were often to be found around shuddering shoulders in efforts to console said stricken maidens !!
My, it sometimes took an awful lot of consolation......................

One of the "hunky flightcrew" back in such times was an ex-Meteor, then Sabre, driver called Barney Concannon.

Barney's claim to fame was that, after retiring from flying 707s and, in those days, DC9s, he wrote a novel.
I remember discussing this ambition in the bar, long before he actually wrote it and also how much time he actually spent researching the Meteor accident.

The book was published in 2001, by The Writers Cooperative, and was entitled "Black Billy".

It was an excellent read about the glory days of airline operation and, specifically, the tortured efforts of Black Billy (said ghost) to rid himself of his eternal travails.

Wonder if he's still there ?? ;) ;) ;)

Teesside ghost
 

I wrote two articles in 'The Log' regarding the demise of F/O Norman. They can be read on my website: www.freewebs.com/barne.

The book 'Black Billy' is fiction inspired by my research into the above accident. It is now out of print but I can supply on CD or floppy in MS Word for cost of postage.

Still alive and kicking, but not flying.

Teesside ghost
 

See Two articles published in 'The Log' re F/O Norman's accident on my website: www.freewebs.com/barne

1953 meteor crashes
 

hi warmtoast. you seem to be well up on meteor crashes . i have a puzzle to resolve. during sept 53 i was a bomb armourer at coningsby. some time during that period we had a visit by a 74 meteor sqdn . now all the articles ive seen and also threads to 74 sqdns bob cossey indicat that a meteor crashed while doing a fast low level run b,o,b day due to mechanicle failure . now unless there were two incidents that isnt what happened. we were working in the bomb dump that day and witnessed the whole event. a meteor took off on the main runway Rt to lft at about 60 feet or so he did a 180 flip, at the far end he did a verticle climb to a thousand feet or so then performed a falling leaf manouver at the bottom of which he levelled off to the left .he was so low at that point that he hit a 6ft raised dyke and exploded sending the cockpit and pilot forward like a rocket 2-300 ft also killing a number of cows. some of us were posted to guard the wreck .we understood the pilot was a sqdn/ ldr . the pilot bob cossey mentioned and in some reports said it was a fl/of ward . i still have a lens from the planes camera which was laying in the field..can you throw any light on this event . im contacting the local rag for archive info. best wishes

patrickoleary

Sorry I can't help as I know no more than as reported in the press at the time (my post number 1 above).

Meteor Mid-Air
 

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the airborne collision in 1951 when two Meteor Mk 8s of 65 from Linton collided at 30,000ft. One pilot died, but the other, Sgt Bill Tollit ejected from an inverted spinning aircraft and landed in a field near Strubby still strapped in his seat minus gloves and mask which had been ripped off during the ejection, his fingers were frozen so that he could not release himself from the seat , he pulled the D-ring before passing into unconciousness. The chute had deployed from between his legs because the front of the seat had been damaged by the explosion allowing the chute to stream out between his legs, He suffered a fractured skull and frostbitten fingers.

Bill went on to fly for the R.C.A.F. in their F86 display team.
I knew him when he was at Cambrian on Viscounts in the late sixties, but sadly, the Big C got him and he died at an early age.

If my memory serves me correctly, his story was featured in a book called "Into the Silk" by Ian Mackersley.

Does anyone have information of a Biggin Hill Mark 8 which crashed in either 55 or 56? The pilot was F/O Coulston {spelling?} ejected but died from injuries in hospital, he had just been punished for low flying in a Vampire around the South coast of England, I belive this was his first jet flight since being given a rocket by the board, he was in charge of the RAF gliding club on the base, he was kind enough to bend the rules and let me fly with them although I was not in the RAF.The loss rate at the peak of the Cold War was pretty bad in Canada as well, one course I was on we lost eleven out of fourteen in two years, the combination of eighteen year old pilots, and the early jets {CF100s} and our climate made for some interesting times!

Hi Clunkdriver

The chap in question is Fg Off Roger Thomas COULSTON and h crashed in Meteor F8 of 41 sqn on 13 Oct 56. Supposed to be engine failure followed by an unsuccessful abandonment

Hope this helps.

O-D

patrickoleary: Broken Wings details all the major accidents of this period and the only one that happened at Coningsby in 1953 was that which was described in the newspaper clipping in post#1, and in my #4 post.

Neither of these bear any resemblance to the accident you describe, so I am at a loss to understand when or where you saw what you describe.

Meteor accident Coningsby Sept 1953
 

This one seems to fit the bill.

19.09.53 WA836 Meteor F8 of 74 Sqn. Broke up during a high speed run at RAF Coningsby Battle of Britain display killing the pilot. The cause was attributed to a double main plane failure as a result of previous overstressing if the aircraft.
Flying Officer PR Ward.

QP

Press cutting about this event below. I was at Biggin Hill and according to my records 41 Sqn converted to Hunters from August 1955 onwards so I'm rather surprised that they were still flying Meteors 15-months later.


http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r...4thOct1956.jpg

Addendum

Rectory Lane, Foots Cray.
Looks as though the pilot chose the only large open space around in which to crash.

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r...oogleImage.jpg

They probably kept one or two for banner towing.

Winston and Meatbox?
 

Is there any truth to the story I heard many, many years ago as an Air Scout? Winston Churchill as Prime Minister (for the second time) is said to have flown in a two seat Meteor (T20?). During his preglight briefing, the pilot is reported to have said;

"Mr. Prime Minister, if I say 'Eject, Eject' and you say; 'Pardon?' - You are talking to yourself!"

Roger.

WSC & Meteors
 

I didn't think any of the two seat British Meteors had ejection seats - certainly not fitted to the T7 or the NF11 to 14.

The 'you'll be talking to yourself' story is one of those tales often recounted. I've heard it used in a briefing for a passenger being flown in a JP.

The story which is true, as it is formally recorded, was Churchill showing concern as to the number of jet pilots being killed in fighters and the response from the then Air Minister was to reassure Churchill that there was nothing to be concerned about as these were the 'normal' figures. This was end 1952 or 53. There were about 500 crashes in both those years (507/483) and 318 (1952) and 333 (1953) fatalities.

This http://www.pprune.org/military-aircr...tatistics.html was the thread a few years back about the dreadful accident rates (apologies if this has been posted earlier in this thread - if so, I couldn't find it).