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 Post subject: Gloster Meteor vs B-29
PostPosted: Wed Apr 04, 2012 3:10 pm 
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Once again looking for one thing finds another thing. Those pesky Meteor's attacking B-29's? What were they thinking. :wink:
Per Youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dMog3T3CAc

Found the Meteor's WW2 history interesting as well. Would have been very interesting for the Meteor's to have had an encounter with Me262's.

Per WIKI,
No. 616 Squadron RAF was the first to receive operational Meteors, a total of 14 aircraft initially. The squadron was based at RAF Culmhead, Somerset and had been previously equipped with the Spitfire VII. After a conversion course at Farnborough for the six leading pilots, the first aircraft was delivered to Culmhead on 12 July 1944.[9] The squadron now with seven Meteors moved on 21 July 1944 to RAF Manston on the east Kent coast and, within a week, 30 pilots were converted.

The Meteor was initially used to counter the V-1 flying bomb threat. 616 Squadron Meteors saw action for the first time on 27 July 1944, when three aircraft were active over Kent. These were the Meteor's (and the Royal Air Force's) first operational jet combat missions. After some problems, especially with jamming guns, the first two V1 "kills" were made on 4 August. By war's end, Meteors accounted for 14 flying bombs. After the end of the V-1 threat, and the introduction of the ballistic V-2 rocket, the RAF was forbidden to fly the Meteor on combat missions over German-held territory for fear of an aircraft being shot down and salvaged by the Germans.

No. 616 Squadron briefly moved to RAF Debden to allow USAAF bomber crews to gain experience and create tactics in facing jet-engined foes before moving to Colerne, Wiltshire. For a week from 10 October 1944 a series of exercises were carried out in which a flight of Meteors made mock attacks on a formation of 100 B-24s and B-17s escorted by 40 Mustangs and Thunderbolts. These suggested if the jet fighter attacked the formation from above it could take advantage of its superior speed in the dive to attack the bombers and then escape by diving through the formation before the escorts could react. The best tactic to counter this was to place a fighter screen 5,000 ft above the bombers and attempt to intercept the jets early in the dive.

No. 616 Squadron exchanged its F.1s for the first Meteor F.3s on 18 December 1944. This was a substantial improvement over the earlier mark, although the basic design still had not reached its potential. Wind tunnel and flight tests demonstrated that the original short nacelles, which did not extend fore and aft of 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.

Judging the Meteor F.3s were ready for combat over Europe the RAF finally decided to deploy them in the continent. On 20 January 1945, four Meteors were moved to Melsbroek in Belgium. Their initial purpose was to provide air defence for the airfield, but their pilots hoped that their presence might provoke the Luftwaffe into sending Me.262s against them. At this point the Meteor pilots were still forbidden to fly over German occupied territory, or to go east of Eindhoven, to prevent a downed aircraft being captured by the Germans or the Soviets.

In March, the entire squadron was moved to Gilze-Rijen and then in April, to Nijmegen. The Meteors flew armed reconnaissance and ground attack operations without encountering any German jet fighters. By late April, the squadron was based at Faßberg, Germany and suffered its first losses when two pilots collided in poor visibility. The war ended with the Meteors having destroyed 46 German aircraft through ground attack[citation needed] and having faced more problems through misidentification as the Me 262 by Allied aircraft and flak than from the Luftwaffe.[citation needed] To counter this, continental-based Meteors were given an all-white finish as a recognition aid. The nearest No.616 squadron came to a jet-to-jet battle came on 19 March, when a force of Arado Ar 234 jet bombers attacked their airfield.

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