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!