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Meteor F4 - silver or camo ?


IanHx

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Hi,

Does anyone know if the Meteor F4 ever served in the RAF wearing green/grey camo ? I've heard that post-war they were silver, but don't know which year the switchover was made. All the pics I've seen on Google so far for an F4 look like silver, however the F4 at Coventry air museum is in camo.

Thinking I might have to build the F4 in silver and then get an F8 kit to satisfy my camo meteor cravings !

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There's a pic in Chaz Bowyer's book of EE525 which served with 207AFS in camo. Also EE464 in 1946 while serving with 56 squadron but still wearing its 124 code (ON-F).

HTH

According to this previous thread Graham it appears that EE464 was a Mk III.

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234915966-meteor-f4-oddballs-was-speaking-of-meteor-f4s-was-there-ever-an-raf-camouflaged-squadron-aircraft/

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The instruction to apply camouflage was issued in Autumn 1953,its unlikely that many Meteor 4s were painted in this as most of the ones left operating would soon be replaced by the later marks.

Cold War Shield has all the photo's of Meteor 4s showing them as silver

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There is also F.4 EE531 at Coventry in the camo scheme, but I don't think it was a RAF squadron machine.

The RAF service of the F.4 fell squarely into the period of silver finish (late 1945 to early '50s) for UK based day fighters.

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The instruction to apply camouflage was issued in Autumn 1953,its unlikely that many Meteor 4s were painted in this as most of the ones left operating would soon be replaced by the later marks.Cold War Shield has all the photo's of Meteor 4s showing them as silver

The camouflage on the Mk.III would have been in WW2 Day Fighter scheme of a Dark Green/Ocean Grey over Medium Sea Grey, the question was whether the Mk.IV would have entered service in this scheme. Some of the confusion stems from photo's of Mk.III's with long nacelles and photo's of Mk.IV's with rounded wing tips....making them almost indistinguishable.

FWIW it appears that the day fighter scheme was already phased out by the time the Mk.IV was introduced. The link I posted above goes into greater detail.....

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Looks like a mk4 in the pic (large nacelles) & the production batch - first F4 batch EE454-493. Although reading that post, it seems there is room for debate!🙄 Also from the pic it appears to have the Mk3 wings but so did the first few Mk4s.

Edited by Graham T
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EE521 was pictured by 'Flight' wearing the WWII camo scheme, it is later pictured in silver as FJ VG of the CGS.

Although F.IVs were delivered from late 1946, they didn't see squadron service until early 1948. The F.8 had arrived in squadron service by early 1950.

I must admit I thought the F.IV serials started at EE517.

Edited by 71chally
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Bowyer (Post War Military Aircraft 2) lists Mk4 serials starting at EE454-EE493; EE517-EE554, EE568-EE599 etc

Butler and Buttler in the Aerofax book list the above as originally being ordered to a Mk.I contract but were delivered as Mk4

Caruana and Franks in the Modellers Data File list EE479-EE493 as Mk.III with long-chord cowlings and Mk4 starting at EE517 and quote contract numbers

Buttler in Warpaint 22 lists the first Mk4's starting at EE517 (he lists EE444-EE493 as Mk.III).

My first thought on seeing the photo of EE549 above, I thought Mk.III with long chord cowlings.

Which is all very confusing although I'm inclined to believe the serial numbers linked to contracts, but...

...the Bowyer book shows EE525 in the Day Fighter Scheme - DFS (with sky band), no other markings, it also has a picture of EE464 of 56 Sqn in the DFS still wearing its 124 Sqn codes of ON-F, it has long chord cowlings and appears to have short span wings - which looks like a Mk.4.

The more I find out about Meteors, the more questions I have.

Edited by Wez
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BuIII).

, it also has a picture of EE464 of 56 Sqn in the DFS still wearing its 124 Sqn codes of ON-F, it has long chord cowlings and appears to have short span wings - which looks like a Mk.4.

.

It has the little fairing on top that seems to be indicative of long chord F3s, not sure about wing tips

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It has the little fairing on top that seems to be indicative of long chord F3s, not sure about wing tips

Good point about that intake, I'm not 100% convinced about that wing tip either, the photo is just at the wrong angle to give a definitive answer, given the serial number anomaly and the intake, could well be a long chord F.III.

Back to the OP, have you tried the Air Britain Picture Library http://www.abpic.co.uk/ ?

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Steven Bond's Meteor book lists EE517 as the first F.4. Of those aircraft in this EE batch quite a few went to Argentina (and they never had Mk3's -apart fro EE470 for training) the first chronologically being EE526. For the high-speed record attempts it says that two F.3's EE454 and '455 were brought up to F.4 standard. Further attempts at the record attempt were made by F4's.

I think it reasonable to assume then that '517 was indeed the first 'true' F.4...................;-)

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My understanding is that EE517 was the first F.IV, first flying April 1945, and that the fatal structural failure to EE518 in may 1946 led to the introduction of the short span wings.

I wonder if the first few IVs were finished in camo, before the official introduction of silver, these being mainly used for trails and high speed work. A number of the early machines were also exported.

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Thanks for the link, hadn't heard of that site.

You're welcome, it's often a good start for finding photo's of British stuff in particular.

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A bit off topic and you probably know this anyway,..but the F.4`s flown by Danish forces were camouflaged, as were the Dutch ones.

412356.jpg

I especially like this one, which is a kosher scheme,....others had yellow trainer bands,....I`ve seen photos to confirm these schemes in various books;

92_3.jpg

IMG_20140217_0003.jpg

All the best

Tony

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