Website Updates
28th Dec 2011
I've updated the page on jet pioneer Sir Frank Whittle its a long overdue rewrite of the page and is the starting point of a complete review of the historical jet age content and alot more detail on specific early jet engines.
1st Dec 2011
I'm currently testing out some cookie and page tracking code on this site which is primarily being developed for an ecommerce application that will run on Lotus Domino This is an excellent site to use for this purpose because I get loads of traffic from all over the world and plenty of visits by search engine 'bots' which is giving me a good idea of just how many different sites are indexing the site. The page tracking will help me interlink the pages better and give me a more accurate idea of what pages get read across what is now a very large site.
16th Nov 2011
Only one part so far in my new meteor spares market place which is intended to help connect enthusiasts with surplus spares with other enthusiasts that are missing cruicial parts for their airframe or engine project. Its free to list your needs and the site isn't going to be involved in brokering deals, I'll just pass you each others details, in time I'll automate this better but for now I'm keeping things very simple. I've also made a start updating the navigation starting with the Meteor project pages which now have a consistant appearance.
31st Oct 2011
While in the process of adding a new image to the worldwide survivors gallery I realised that my global stylesheet wasn't working quite right so have begun a process of updating it and claening up the html on the pages to improve layout and appearance. I've also updated the sitemap which was also split into a second page to allow me to have links to the majority of the content on the site while giving me space for future content growth.
14th June 2011
The eagerly awaited first Flight of WA591 took place on the 14th June 2011 at around 4:00 pm. It was taken into the air by CAA test pilot Dan Griffith and he reported that it flew very smoothly. There was some drama around the port undercarriage warning light but recycling the undercarriage solved the problem and the aircraft landed safely.
7th June 2011
After a prompt by jet age Meteor pilot Graham Plumbe I added a page for 72 Squadron. They flew meteors between 1952 & 1959 and were a helicopter unit for much of the next forty years, its now a reserve squadron operating the Tucano. I've illustrated the page with a nice picture of NF12, WS609 which also may have flown with 46 squadron.
26th April 2011
The site is now hosted with a new IBM Domino provider www.prominic.net. I've changed over from the Domino Developer network due to a series of serious support issues, Prominic also offer slightly more capability for progressing a number of other IBM Lotus Domino application projects.
23rd March 2011
Finally got around to posting a new picture of VZ467 by Peter Williams after a flying display at Temora where it is now based. It masquerades as A77-851 in Australia and is the only airworthy F8 Meteor in the world, it was known as 'Winston' on the UK display circuit until it was exported downunder in August 2001.
22nd February 2011
A series of emails from Donald Richard has filled in the details of the sale and delivery of NF11, WD592 to Mojave, California in June 1975. This aircraft preserved at Edwards Air Force base and featured as a super secret jet in several episodes of Wonder Woman.
22nd November 2010
I managed to edit the image file to depict WA591 as FMK - Q which is the markings she will carry on the display line. There has been some confusion as to exact identity but a fairly recently discovered photo removes all doubt. I've also fixed the slightly annoying alignment issue in the header and change the colours of the top menu to make them stand out better against the background after hearing some feedback while out at Kemble.
12th November 2010
Added links to the South Australian Aviation Museum at Port Adelaide which has the nose of A77-851 'Halestorm' on display and an update to the status of A77-867 which left Adelaide/Parafield Airport in March/ April for New Zealand although buyer and current owner isn't known.
21st September 2010
I discovered a bug in the menu system which meant that people using Firefox couldn't see the expanding menus e.g. when you hover over 'The Jet Age >>' a submenu appears. It took a while to come up with a solution which has now been rolled out across the site.
3rd September 2010
Finally got round to putting together a page for James Martin & Martin-Baker aircraft. Its really only an outline as there are already a number of sites where you can read much about early and modern developments of aircraft escape technology. An excellent book on Martin-Baker specifically is Engineering for Life: the Story of Martin-Baker by John Jewell.
2nd September 2010
A new page created to honor Doddy Hay, test parachutist for Martin-Baker.
I have just finished reading his story The Man in the Hot Seat again and after doing so just had to create the page. It will be a part of a wider section on ejection seats and Martin-Baker that remains unfinished.7th July 2010
Some tidy up work on the Australian Survivors page including the discovery that the RAAF operated a F. Mk III on loan before 77 Sqn was up and running. It wasn't around for long as it was broken in a heavy landing meaning that they had to pay for it and it went on the books as A77-1. I have not had any news on WA591 but am chasing them for an update and plan to go out an see them soon if I can fit this in.
29th March 2010
The project pages for Meteor T7, WL405 & Meteor F8, WK914 are up to date now with a selection of photos of WL405 by new owner Mike Davey. Its now moved to Hooton Park where he is centralising his restoration work.
24th January 2010
I've added some new photos at WA591 at Kemble after an enjoyable afternoon visiting the aircraft. Its been over two years since I've been able to make the trip and the progress is amazing, it has its engines and they are finishing off tests of the fuel system ahead of ground runs and taxi trials. I've also been reworking the jet age pages starting with events in Germany which meant a new page for the HE280 and have or will be rewritting almost all the others and linking them into the new navigation and site map.
12th January 2010
The new navigation has been rolledout across many pages and many links added and updated. There are new and updated service history and image pages for a number of survivors including WD592 at Edwards Air Force base and WS792 at Brighouse bay. In time you'll see history pages for all survivors but its time consuming to research these and they won't appear in any particular order. The site map has also been significantly updated and will take you to many new and updated pages.
22nd December 2009
A full review of the site has been started with updates to the html title, description and keywords for all the pages. The site gets plenty of traffic but analysis of some usage data found a fair number of broken links and some inbound links that no longer worked because the content has been reorganised.
14th December 2009
A new home page image, second one of an Egyptian Air Force meteor. I've moved the previous image to a new archive page which I'll use going forward as a history of photos featured on the home page. I still have things to work out regarding the gallery pages which don't work very well at the moment and are difficult to update.
March 2009
The former Meteorflight T7, WL405 has now arrived at Bruntingthorpe, Martin Garrett, the new owner sent us some pictures of the move. We have also filled a gap with the posting of a photo of the cockpit section of NF11, WM367 at Norwich Aviation Museum although its in need of serious attention.
We have been able to confirm that there are now at least six Meteors in Brazil, although still need photos of some of the airframes. There has been work done on the jet age pages and you'll now find pages for early turbojets such as the Whittle W1 and Halford H1/ Goblin. They still need much more work as its very demanding to filter out good information from bad in order to create an accurate picture.
16th Feb 2009
A big update, all the WA591 project pages have now been restored, some of the text still needs some work but there are a few photos that didn't originally get posted. There is also some new historical content as I begin to put in the pages on early jet engines such as the Whittle W1 which powered the Gloster Pioneer (E28/39) and the W2B Welland which was the powerplant of the F. Mk 1 Meteor. The model pages and galleries have also returned which you can access from the site map until I can spend some more time on the site navigation.
23rd Jan 2009
The first of the pages for WA591 has returned with loads of images of the rebuild of the center section, still needs some more work on the text. I have also restored the gallery pages and the personal galleries contributed by Nigel Ramsay, Bill Jordon, TIm Kendrick and Dave Vernon.
8th Jan 2009
A fair amount of progress in the last few days, at least fifteen new pages dealing with history of engine and jet aircraft development and some improvements to the navigation. I have now got about 80 pages on the site (not all accessible!) but still have at least 40 more to do so if you find that some links don't work or images are missing them please be patient. The pages with the images of WA591's restoration are next in the queue although I may restore the gallery pages first if that is easier.
3rd Jan 2009
I have worked on the pages for Belgium, Denmark, Egypt etc and fixed a few layout issues and imported the image files. I am also beginning to restore the pages on early engine development and the first jet aircraft such as the HE178, you'll need to be a bit patient here as I'm also rewriting the text and breaking up the content as I go into smaller easily digested pieces which can be time-consuming.
27th Dec 2008
The site has been redeveloped as a Lotus Domino database, the majority of the original content is still here although many pages have been rewritten to align with the sites new focus as a resource for Meteor buffs. It will continue to track the various projects underway to restore Meteor airframes including WA591 although it is up to each of those groups to keep me informed of progress.