Exports - Holland
The dutch were one of the most prolific users of the Meteor with 226 serving with their Air Force and Naval Air Service. The majority of the Meteors were licence built in Holland by Fokker who also built Meteors for Belgium. The first Meteors to enter service were F4's with 38 bought in small batches between 1948 and 1950. These were initially allocated to the Fighter School at Twente before being passed on to 322 & 327 squadrons at Soesterburg and 323 & 326 Sqn's at Leeuwarden once sufficient pilots had been trained for these units to fully convert to the Meteor, later the Dutch also bought 27 former RAF F4's to add to the new built aircraft from Gloster's.
Like Belgium, Holland also operated 43 T7 trainers which were delivered in small numbers between 1949 and 1956. The first T7 to arrive was Gloster demonstrator G-AKPK bought after it was converted back to T7 standard in November 1948. It had a short life in Holland being destroyed in an undershoot crash shortly after delivery, of the remainder the largest number of 8 and 11 T7's were delivered in 1952 and 1953 respectively. Ten of the T7's were allocated to the Dutch Naval Air Service with the last two still in service as late as Jan 1962.
A Dutch F8 in later style tactical camoflage
In 1949 the Dutch government started negotiations to license build the Meteor in Holland. Following experience overhauling Dutch and Belgium F4's Fokker signed an agreement to build 300 F8's for Holland and Belgium. The first Fokker built F8 was delivered to the R.N.A.F in January 1951. The first fifty F8's were assembled from Gloster produced kits with the kits progressively requiring more assembly. This allowed Fokker to gain sufficient experience to build later Meteors from small parts. The last F8 was delivered in February 1954. Fokker produced 155 F8's for the Royal Netherlands Air Force, they served with five ex RAF F8's with seven squadrons of the R.N.A.F at Leewarden and Soesterberg until replaced by Hawker Hunter F.Mk IV's from 1956.