The Unique but Ill-Fated Meteor PR.5

[neilfergylee]

The Meteor PR.5 has been a footnote in the Meteor's history: the prototype, VT347, crashed on its first flight, killing Gloster test pilot Rodney Dryland.  As a result, no official photographs were taken of the PR.5 and it has faded into obscurity, receiving mention only as a one-off.

 

Thanks to this excellent forum, I asked several weeks ago whether there did happen to be a photograph of the PR.5 and, as is the way of this excellent forum, I came-up trumps.

 

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235044487-the-longest-of-long-shots-the-meteor-fr5/

 

Thanks to @Dave Fleming, I was guided to the one source of images of what was not the FR.5 but the PR.5, namely the Summer 2008 edition of Air-Britain Aeromilitaria.  It would appear that a Gloster employee took a couple of snaps of VT347 before its fateful flight.  I'd rather not reproduce the pictures here, but there was one general view at ground level and another close-up of the camera nose that was identical to that on the later PR.10.  The following were apparent:

 

1. The aircraft was, essentially, a long-span F.4 with a camera nose.
2. The aircraft was unarmed and appeared not to be designed to carry guns, this being confirmed by the Air-Britain article.
3. It was known that there was also a camera mounting in the rear fuselage.
4. The aircraft was partially-painted: wings, rear fuselage and tail appeared sliver with Type C and C1 roundels but the mid and forward fuselage, plus the engines were in different shades of primer.  The nose appeared to be painted silver.

 

The colour details are largely speculative: the picture was a blow-up from what was probably a rather small print rather than one of those lovely 10"x8" prints so beloved of official photographers, while it was - of course - black and white.

 

Studying various photographs of Meteor production, combined with my own knowledge and experience (10 years in the Aerospace industry) and a bit of asking around, I plumped for a variety of shades of primer green, including Airfix interior green (much too dark and blue for my eyes), Games Workshop Elysian Green (pretty good) and a mix of Elysian Green and Humbrol Beige Green that cam-up with a shade that matches my recollection of airframes in primer.

 

The kit itself was the MPM Meteor Mk.4 'Record-Breaker' which provided the correct long-span wings, combined with a spare PR nose from the MPM Meteor T.7½ .

 

Here is the finished model:

 

 

And my 'works photo':

 

 

Finally, a comparison with the later PR.10.

 

 

More photos can be found here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/26690797@N02/albums/72157697272442550/with/44782802685/

 

Comments welcome.

 

Kind regards,

 

Neil

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Great looking Meteor(s).  Happy to see you got the photographs you needed. 

[BritJet]

Well done, it really looks the part based on the two photos known to exist. It's definitely the 'missing link' as far as most Meteor references are concerned.

 

Steve

[stevehnz]

Brilliant Neil, you've made a super job of that. 👍

Steve.

[exdraken]

Very nice and interesting build!

 

[RMCS]

Fantastic 

[stevej60]

Excellent!

[bryanm]

Very nice - more missing Meteor marks!  I've just been reading 'Meteor Boys' where there is the briefest mention of the PR5.

[F-32]