(AIR) Gloster's "Meatbox"

Hi All:

It was a nice day at my purveyor of Styrene's place, two iterations of the new 1/48 scale Classic Airframe's Gloster Meteor Mk.8 kit had arrived. Classic has evolved a bit with these kits, they now have decals printed by Micro-scale and they are very nice. On the down side, they have dumped the vac-u-formed canopies for injection molded ones and they are not the clearest items of the genre I have ever seen. A good polish and a dip in Future will definitely be in order unless you plan to go to Aero-Club or Squadron/Falcon for vac-u-formed replacements. No etched metal, but some very nice appearing gray resin parts for the cockpit and engine fronts. There are two kits: Physically, the early version has the canopy with the solid rear portion while the late version has the complete clear canopy. Other than this, the differences are in the markings.

  1. Early version; all three decal options are in the "high speed silver" finish. First is 56 Squadron circa 1953, second is a really flashy set of markings for 326 Sqdn, Royal Netherlands Air Force @ Soesterberg in the early 50's and finally an Australian bird from 77 Sqdn. in Korea in
1953. The Australian bird is Sergeant George Hale's "Halestorm", one of the 77 Sqdn. MIG Killers.

  1. Late Version, Three birds again, all camouflaged this time. First two are for 501 and 609 Squadrons, Royal Auxiliary Air Force in the late

1950's. The third is an Israeli bird from the early 1960's. R.J., Are you listening??

For anybody "down under" I do have one question concerning the Australian bird. Did the 77 Sqdn. aircraft really go to Korea with the early type canopy with the solid rear portion? Seem that would be one more item to work against them when the excretia hit the rotating blades.

Final Question: Would anyone out there have a copy of Dutch Decals 1/48 scale set RAF/Special 1, squadron markings for Gloster Meteors. This set was originally made for the Aero-club series of mixed media kits but it would sure be nice to have now. Wonder if we could get Dutch Decals to re-issue this sheet?

Bill Shuey

Reply to
William H. Shuey
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Sorry, not down under, but all the photos I have of 77 Sqdn. aircraft show the early canopy. Which canopy does the kit call out for "Halestorm?"

Mark Schynert

Reply to
Mark Schynert

The kit calls for the early canopy. From what you are saying I gather they are correct.

Bill Shuey

Reply to
William H. Shuey

All photographs that I can find of Australian Meteor 8s in Korea show them with the metal rear portion to the canopy.

Gordon McLaughlin

Reply to
Gordon McLaughlin

Did any of the Aussie Meteors fly in air to air combat with the Mig15? If so did the Meteor win any of the battles?

Tim Brimelow

Reply to
tim brimelow

I refer you to Bill's original post, which you quoted in full below your own:

RTFQ!!

You could have also looked at

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Reply to
Jeff C

Bill,

I see from an earlier post that you asked a question about clear canopies and engine intakes on the RAAF Korean Meteors. I have some Korean War Meteor photos in my collection, I will see if they flew with the clear canopies in Korea. I'm sure they did, it becomes as to what size engine intake they used at the time because there was a mix of the sizes and canopies.

HTH

Phil Hastie Canberra Australia

Reply to
Phil & Annette Hastie

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