Breaking Records

The first Meteors in operational service with the RAF were little faster and in some cases inferior to the last of the piston engined fighters that they were designed to replace. It would not be long though before advances in both airframes and engines would transform the Meteor's performance.

In both the F. Mk 1 & III Meteors the Derwent engines were housed in short stubby nacelles, it was discovered though that extending them both in front and behind the wing improved the airflow and greatly reduced drag which increased sea level speed by almost 60 mph. It was this in conjunction with the new and much more powerful Rolls Royce Derwent V that led to thoughts of capturing the world air speed record set by Germany in 1939 in addition to forming the basis of the F. MK IV Meteor.

The record attempt was made with two late production F3's, EE454 & EE455 which were taken from the production line and brought up to F4 standard less their radio masts and with ballast in place of armament and the cannon ports faired over. Both aircraft were given a special high gloss paint finish with EE454 retaining its day fighter camouflage scheme while EE455 was painted overall yellow. It was EE454 "Brittania" that raised the record on the 7th November 1945 when Group Capt Hugh Wilson (Formerly of 616 Squadron) flew at a speed of 606.38 mph although Eric Greenwood was only marginally slower in EE455 at 603 mph.

EE455 being prepared for flight (Click to enlarge)

Grp Capt Wilson & Eric Greenwood (Gloster's Chief Test pilot)

Pushing the Boundries

The following year the High Speed flight reformed at Tangmere with three new aircraft EE548, EE549 & EE550. All standard F4's they were modified by fitting a new aluminium hood and glass port holes in place of the canopy and as for the earlier record attempts had a special high-gloss finish along with removal of their armament. Many books also suggest that they had the new clipped wing which was applied to most production F4's but this is contradicted by photographs of the record breaking EE459 which show the aircraft with the original 43ft span wing that was standard on the F3 and early production F4's.

In addition to the airframe modifications the Derwent V had been cleared to an emergency rating of 4,300 lbs at 15,200 rpm against the normal maximum of 14,700 rpm boosting thrust by 800 lbs to 4,300 lbs. With these modifications the record was raised to 615.78 mph on the 7th August 1946. The record was set by Group Capt E. M. Donaldson DSO, DSC in EE549, the aircraft later set the Paris to London speed record in 1947. It is preserved today at the Tangmere Miitary Aviation Museum near Chichester on long term loan from the Imperial War Museum.

A picture of EE549 from a French school book (Jean-Pierre Veret)

Other standard production Meteors also set city to city and closed circuit speed records which helped boost exports but one of the most intersting records was the time to climb record set by R. B. Pricket on the 31st August 1951 in WA820. It was however anything but a standard production Meteor as it was fitted with two 7,600 Lb Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire turbojets and reached 12,000m in just 3 Minutes 9.5 seconds.