Exports
Israeli Air Force (IAF) Meteors
The Middle East entered the jet age in October 1949 when the Egyptian Air Force (EAF) received its first jet fighters two Meteor F4's. By the end of 1952 they had 23 Meteors and 29 DeHavilland Vampires. At the same time the IAF's most modern aircraft was the P51D Mustang. Early exports
Starting in 1950, Israel made numerous attempts to purchase jet fighters but was consistently refused by the USA and other European nations. This finally changed in August 1952 when the British government agreed to deal with Israel. This resulted in an order for 11 F8's and 4 T7 trainers approved by the Israeli government in November 1952 and signed with Gloster in February 1953. The first two T7's arrived at Ramat-David on June 17th delivered by British pilots and were allocated to 117th "Hasilon Harishona" (First Jet) squadron, The first of the F8's arrived in August and all aircraft were delivered by January 1954. The F8's were fitted with Martin-Baker M2E ejector seats and were armed with cannon's supplied by Israel, all the F8's were fitted with strengthened wings and had rocket rails and target towing lugs lugs on the fuselage ventral tanks.
Israeli Air Force F8
Further expansion
In late 1954/ 1955 Israel added to its inventory when it bought a further two T7's and seven FR9's. They were all ex-RAF aircraft refurbished by Flight Refuelling Ltd and delivered between December 1954 and May 1955. Two FR9's were later converted to F8's while five others had the reconnaissance equipment removed and served merely as fighters, curiously two T7's were however converted to a photo-reconnaissance role serving with the 115th "Hadrakon Hameoffef"(Flying Dragon) squadron.
The IAF added night fighting capability in 1956 with the delivery of three NF13's from Britain. Six had been ordered but the remaining three were only delivered after the lifting of the arms embargo in 1958 with one of the aircraft being written-off after force-landing in France en-route. The nightfighters served with 119 sqn in a night interceptor role until withdrawn from service in 1964. Israel's other Meteors involved three F8's built for the Egyptian Air Force which were used as operational trainers and target tugs from late 1953 until the early 1960's. They also aquired two additional T7's from the Belgium Air Force which were refurbished by Avions Fairey and fitted with the high speed F8 tail before delivery.
Service and Combat
The 117th was the only operational jet fighter squadron for a number of years acting as the sole training unit for jet pilots while at the same time on constant standby with the growing tension in the Middle East. Scrambled against EAF Hawker Furies in July 1954 they first went into combat against other jet fighters on August 18th, 1955. On that day two Meteors engaged four Vampires over the Negev desert damaging one, on September the 1st two meteors (an F8 and an FR9) engaged four EAF Vampires which had crossed the border at 6:52 in the morning. After detecting the intruders Captain Aaron Yoali shot down two Vampires, the first jet kills in the Middle-East and the first IAF aerial victory since the War of Independence.
With the arrival of French Dassault Ouragans and Mysteres in 1955 the Meteors were relegated to the ground attack role. They were heavily involved during the Suez crisis in attacks against Egyptian ground forces and for photo-reconnaissance. In July 1957 they were retired from front line service when the 117th squadron became a reserve unit although the T7's continued to fly reconnaissance missions until the arrival of photo-reconnaissance Vautour IIB's in the late 1950's. The last Meteors in service were the NF13's which were used for night interceptors and night-flying training with some Meteor T7's still used in the training role until 1970. Six Meteors have survived their service with the IAF including WM320/ 4X-FNE which was used after retirement for research before being donated to the IAF Museum.