Meteor exploits - for Peter McLeland

[cstorey]

I thought this little anecdote, from Pprune , about Meteor training at Middleton St George ( now Durham Tees valley - or something ) and its satellite airfield at Croft/Neasham might raise some amusement

"Danny, re your experience at MSG, I arrived as a new QFI there ( 202 AFS ) in September 1952 flying Meteor F4 and T7. Neasham/Croft, some seven miles south west was a relief landing ground, the main runway of which was roughly aligned with MSG. In those days it was common practice for fighter pilots to always take off and land on the left side of the runway unless of course the aircraft in front had already used it, when it then alternated left/right. Shortly before my arrival an incident occurred when two aircraft at Neasham passed each other on the runway going in opposite directions doing "roller landings". It seems that one of them had thought it was MSG where they were using a reciprocal runway. Fortunately they had both adhered to the "land on the left" dictum. From then on it was decreed that no matter what the wind was the two airfield's active runways would always be in the same direction (24/06 ?) to reduce the risk of a calamity."

[petermcleland]

I bet that was a bit of a shock for the two Meteor pilots as they passed each other Chris!

I only ever flew twice at Middleton St. George and that was in a Lightning...I have to admit that I never did landings in the middle of the runway till I joined BEA. When I was on fighters it was the norm to land left or right.