Gloster Meteor

Bakers Hill Farm, Birlingham, Worcestershire

Gloster Meteor T.mk7 WH166

May 2017

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DJI_0082 by martyn jones , on Flickr

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DJI_0075 by martyn jones , on Flickr

Martyn keep up the good work with the Drone images they are brilliant, another dimension on what we have not seen before.

Regards Ian

According to my magnifying glass it's 701.

Gloster Meteor T.mk 7 VW453 on its way to Staverton

April 2013

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Gloster Meteor T.mk 7 WL332

Long Marston, Warks

May 2011

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Last Flight of Meteor NF.11 WM167

Today was an end of an era as the Meteor NF.11 made its final flight into Bruntingthorpe

This Gloster Meteor NF.11 is the only surviving Night Fighter Meteor left in airworthy condition and was one of the first privately owned jet fighters to operate in the UK.
WM167 was built under licence from Gloster by the Armstrong Whitworth Company at Baginton (Coventry) airport in 1952. It entered service with the RAF’s 228 Operational Conversion Unit (OCU) at RAF Leeming, Yorkshire in August but after just a month she was passed to 33MU at RAF Colerne in Wiltshire for storage.
The aircraft returned to 228 OCU the following year and remained on charge with the unit until 1960 when she headed south to 33MU at Colerne yet again. Her stay was brief yet again as she was returned to Armstrong Whitworth in January 1961 for modification to TT.20 target towing configuration. Upon completed WM167 was allocated to the Aeroplane and Armaments Experimental Establishment at Boscombe Down, Wiltshire where she was used for target towing trials.
By now WM167 still only had 559 hours ‘on the clock’ and a quiet year at Boscombe Down only added another 20 hours to the logbooks. At the end of the trials exercise WM167 headed back to 33MU at Colerne yet again before being delivered to Flight Refuelling Ltd. The aircraft spent the next ten years towing targets under an MoD contract at both Tarrant Rushton in Dorset and Llanbedr in North Wales.
The aircraft was declared surplus in 1975 and purchased by well-known ‘warbird’ collector Doug Arnold for his Warbirds of Great Britain (WoGB) collection, which at that time was based at Blackbushe. She was ferried to Blackbushe on December 1, 1975 by the late-Neil Williams and converted back into NF.11 Night Fighter configuration before entering storage.
When the Arnold family sold Blackbushe in 1984 the WoGB collection needed to be moved and the simplest way to move WM167 was by air. By now a sale had been sale had been negotiated with Mike Carlton’s ‘Hunter One’ collection at Bournemouth (Hurn) Airport and the aircraft was registered to Carlton’s Brencham Group on June 8, 1984. The highly appropriate G-LOSM (GLOSter Meteor) was allocated to the aeroplane and it was ferried to Hurn a month later on July 6.
The aircraft operated successfully until Mike Carlton was killed in a flying accident whilst on holiday in Zimbabwe in August 1986. The Meteor, along with other jets belonging to Hunter One, was auctioned off by Christies on October 1, 1987 and remained at Hurn as part of LGH Aviation, which traded as Jet Heritage Ltd. The company later became Hunter Wing Ltd and Bournemouth Aviation Museum but G-LOSM was acquired by Air Atlantique in March 2004.
Over the years G-LOSM has featured in a variety of documentaries and has taken part in a number of important flights – including carrying the ashes of jet-engine designer Sir Frank Whittle. Today the aircraft remains airworthy at Coventry and is painted in a camouflage scheme typical of the Night Fighting Meteors of its day. It carries no squadron markings at present but depicted 141 Sqn for many years during the 1980s and 90s.
G-LOSM flies not only as a tribute the early jet pilots but also to those preservation pioneers who led the way in civilian jet fighter operations during the early 1980s.”

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Last Flight of Meteor NF.11 WM167
Great photos Martyn.

It was so cold!!! My feet still haven't thawed out. Very sad to see her land for the last time especially after seeing her display so many times over the years. At least they'll be keeping all the systems running & taxying in the future hopefully -


The visiting Vampire warmed us up briefly -


Steve

Last Flight of Meteor NF.11 WM167

stevie wrote:

Great photos Martyn.

It was so cold!!! My feet still haven't thawed out. Very sad to see her land for the last time especially after seeing her display so many times over the years. At least they'll be keeping all the systems running & taxying in the future hopefully -

It redefined for me, the meaning of the word cold. At the end of the day I was grateful to stick my hands in the hand drier in the toilets for 10 minutes afterwards.