Meteors over Oxford today?
 

Just heard the sound of four axial-flow jets right over the house this afternoon and caught the splendid sight of what had to be two Meteors in close formation heading west in the direction of BEagle's Secret Oxfordshire Airbase. Kemble? Boscombe Down?

Too late to see any markings, although thought I saw a glimpse of red. Gone all too soon!

My initial thought was that they were from MB at Chalgrove, but that's closed now.... :(

Brightened up a difficult afternoon, anyway.

Ripline

Axial ? Centrifugal surely?

You're right. I probably meant centrifugal. Distinctive sound from my childhood, anyway!

I didn't know that. Where have their Meatboxes gone?

Martin Baker's website is still showing Chalgrove.

Contact

Ownership of Chalgrove airfield was transferred a couple of months ago from the MOD to the Homes and Communities Agency and South Oxfordshire District Council wants to build 3500 homes on the site.

Large scale house building at Chalgrove is years away. MB operation is still up, running and functional, although only VERY occasional.

There was a Martin Baker-owned Meteor active showing on FlightRadar24 this afternoon. My memory is not infallible but I think the c/s was MBE01. Unfortunately I didn't take a lot of notice of it as in my life Meteors were so plentiful.

Piece on BBC South this morning about protests against housing development on Chalgrove Airfield

I believe at the current rate of use the two Meteors will be flying into the 2040s.

Chalgrove is mentioned quite a lot in this recent document:

http://www.raf.mod.uk/RAFbenson/rafc...96A03DEA87.pdf

:cool:

My guess is the classic jets might be appearing the families day at Benson

Yesterday, whilst sat in the beer garden of my local pub twixt Boscombe Down, I saw the red marked Meatbox fly overhead towards the east.

Yes, because as old as the things are, there simply isn't an alternate type to replace it, the advantage the meatbox has over everything else is in the design layout, fast enough to test seats, a resilient structure and more importantly, a brace of wing mounted engines that are clear of the fuselage and hence unaffected by exhaust gas ingestion from the seat rocket motors.

Try and think of another similar type and you will struggle to find one.

......but 'jazzing the cans' is soooooo passe

Canberra perhaps?

Err single canopy and side by side seating, unless you use the American version, so will get a tad warm for the remaining pilot.. At the moment none flying here either, though that is in hand.
As old as the Meatbox is, it just ticks all of the boxes when you come down to it.

NL, but if tweaked for single pilot operation, as I believe some were, then you have the large navigator station behind with a big hatch already cut in the top

I beleive MB looked at Canberras at the time they were being phased out of RAF service but decided against .

I see. I hadn't worked out that one occupant banged out and one was needed to do the landing.

Simples!

There's a Met. Man for you.