Meteor 7...

[petermcleland]

When I was on 275 S&R Squadron running their helicopter spares around the UK in the Anson 19, I also had a very nice Meteor 7 VZ637 and I managed to find a photo of it on the Internet, taken in 1956 at Bovingdon...That was a year before I flew it in 1957...It was also the jet fighter that the RAF lent me for a weekend visit to a function at Marham!

[DaveB]

Those were the days! (not that I was there of course)

Good find Peter
ATB
DaveB

[petermcleland]

I see that I only had the pleasure of "Owning" her for three months...June, July and September 1957. In that time I did 36 sorties for a total of 29 hours 55 mins. The longest sortie was 50 mins and the shortest was 5 mins (in those days we counted from the start of the take-off roll till touchdown...unlike in civilian flying where we counted from start of Pushback till Engines off). That 5 minute sortie was from Thornaby to Middleton St.George for fuel.



You have to lift the picture to see the times for the seven sorties in VZ637 but from the top they are .30, .30, .25, .30, .30, .25 and .45 mins. So you can see they were very quick trips

[DaveB]

Though not exactly available for comment in June '57, I was here.. in fact probably where I live now!

Peter.. as far as keeping your flying log up to date, how did you go about that? You obviously wouldn't have taken your log with you.. all the ones I've seen (or the majority of them) are beautifully written in ink and look like they've been filled in later rather than done 'in situ' as it were

ATB
DaveB

[petermcleland]

Though not exactly available for comment in June '57, I was here.. in fact probably where I live now!

Peter.. as far as keeping your flying log up to date, how did you go about that? You obviously wouldn't have taken your log with you.. all the ones I've seen (or the majority of them) are beautifully written in ink and look like they've been filled in later rather than done 'in situ' as it were

Dave they were done at the end of each month sitting at a table with the Authorisation Book in front of me and then sent in for the Boss to sign the summary. Later in civilian life I carried my rather large and heavy logbook in my briefcase and wrote up each flight before moving out of my seat...This was obviously more hurried and a bit of a chore so my writing was certainly no longer neat then

[DaveB]

Cheers Peter I'd presumed your civvie log would have been filled in probably on the aircraft as you had a rather large flight bag with space for such things

ATB
DaveB