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Aviation History
1948
1948 - 0447.PDF
8TH, 1945 FLIGHT 373 INTERCEPTERS Precisely aligned, brand-new Meteor IVs of the Horsham St. Faith squadrons make a noble sight—and a perfect target. With twelve 20 mm. guns plus bombs or rockets if required), a section of three Meteors, as seen sweeping along the line, could make short work of such a parade. With the Met$o*-4Vs at Horsiu^i St. Faith Illustrated with "Flight" Photographs INCE Group Capt. Wilson and Eric Greenwood topped 600 m.p.h. in Gloster Meteor IVs as long ago as 1945, the claim has been consistently advanced that this mark of Meteor has been standard equipment in the R.A.F. This has led to some misapprehension, for although the Mk IV Meteor has been delivered in quantity to Service units for a considerable time past, the full-scale employ- ment of the type in squadron service is quite a recent c^jyslopment. It is now gratifying to receive an official assurance that sufficient Mark IVs are available to re-equip all Meteor squadrons of Fighter Command. By happy coincidence, or good staff work, a visit to a Fighter Command station fully equipped with Meteor IVs— at Horsham St. Faith, near Norwich—fell on the 30th birth- day of the R.A.F. A V.V.I.P. York of No. 24 (Commonwealth) Squadron, Transport Command (the machine formerly used by the Duke of Gloucester), carried us from Northolt across East Anglia and out over the North Sea from a point just south of Lowestoft. As we orbited at 250 m.p.h., some twenty- seven miles off-shore, an R/T message announced that Meteors from Horsham St. Faith, fifty miles away, were being scrambled to intercept us. Within eight minutes, two sections of two air- craft each sailed effortlessly up from beneath our starboard elevator, their long fuselages, prominent nacelles and clipped wings showing livid against the grey-dappled sea seven thousand feet below. Swivelling our red-leather annchair, we kept them in sight as they withdrew to come in repeatedly for stern attacks,finally drawing alongside close enough for us to decipher their serial numbers and to set us wondering why theirroundels should still be outlined in yellow. Having landed at Horsham St. Faith, where we wereaccorded a mast friendly welcome by G/C. D. G. Lewis, D.F.C., who commands the Eastern Fighter Sector ofNo. 12 Group, we were able to learn more about the inter- ception, from the pilots engaged and from the officer incharge of the control and reporting organization. Our York Air Vice-Marshal T. C. Traill, C.B., O.B.E., D.F.C., Air Officer Commanding No. 12 Croup, Fighter Com- mand, was an inter- ested—and impressed —spectator. He is seen with G;C. D. C. Lewis, D.F.C., Eastern Sector Commander of the Croup.
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