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| - The Gloster Meteor was the first British jet fighter ever built. Designed by George Carter, it first flew in 1943 and commenced operations on 27 July 1944 with 616 Squadron of the Royal Air Force (RAF).
- The Gloster Meteor was the first Jet Fighter developed and used by Great Britain in World War II
- The Gloster Meteor was the first British jet fighter and the Allies' first operational jet aircraft. The Meteor's development was heavily reliant on its ground-breaking turbojet engines, developed by Sir Frank Whittle and his company, Power Jets Ltd. Development of the aircraft began in 1940, work on the engines had started in 1936. The Meteor first flew in 1943 and commenced operations on 27 July 1944 with 616 Squadron of the Royal Air Force (RAF). Nicknamed by pilots the "Meatbox", although the Meteor was not an aerodynamically advanced aircraft, it proved to be a successful and effective combat fighter.
- The development of the turbojet-powered Gloster Meteor was a collaboration between the Gloster Aircraft Company and Sir Frank Whittle's firm, Power Jets Ltd. Frank Whittle formed Power Jets Ltd in March 1936 to develop his ideas of jet propulsion, Whittle himself serving as the company's chief engineer, outside of his duties as an RAF flying officer. For several years, attracting financial backers and aviation firms prepared to take on Whittle's radical ideas was difficult; in 1931, Armstrong-Siddeley had evaluated and rejected Whittle's proposal, finding it to be technically sound but at the limits of engineering ability. Securing funding was a persistently worrying issue throughout the early development of the engine. The first Whittle prototype jet engine, the Power Jets WU, began runni
- thumb|250px De Gloster Meteor was een Britse straaljager die tussen 1948 en 1959 in gebruik was bij de Koninklijke Luchtmacht. Ook Belgiƫ beschikte tijdens de Koude oorlog over dit toestel. De Meteor was min of meer het Britse antwoord op de overigens meer geavanceerde Duitse Messerschmitt Me 262, die in 1944 door de Luftwaffe in gebruik was genomen. De twee Rolls-Royce Derwent motoren verbruikten per uur ongeveer 1800 liter kerosine; de 180 liter die bij het starten werden verbruikt niet meegerekend. Er was dan nog 270 liter aan boord voor het aanvliegen en de landing. Dat was juist voldoende om na een mislukte landing door te starten en het nog eens te proberen.
- Developed to meet the requirements of Specification F.9/40, which called for an operational jet fighter, the first Meteor to fly (actually the fifth prototype airframe) first flew on 5 March 1943, powered by de Havilland H.1 turbojets in place of the intended Wittle W.2Bs. It was not officially retired from the military until the 1980s since it was being used as a target tug. Their were 3,497 planes built from 1944 to 1954. It saw some service in late WWII and also participated in the Korean War.
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