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AIRFIX 1:72 GLOSTER METEOR III
Reviewer: Kevin Ronayne kevin.ronayne@nuigalway.ie
Kit Review submitted:
3 March 2002
The Gloster Meteor has always been in the shadow of the Messerschmitt Me 262, usually with good reason. Early versions of the Meteor didn't have anywhere near the performance of the Me 262, and the Meteor saw very little air-to-air combat. However, according to Bill Gunston, the Meteor actually was the first jet aircraft in the world to enter service. On July 12th 1944, the first flight of Meteor I's entered service with 616 Sqn., some eight days before Me 262's entered service with KG51. That's got to count for something at least.
The Meteor was no rushed design - an order for prototypes was placed as early as February 1941. The first flight did not take place until March 1943 - obviously, engine development was a critical factor, and jet engine development was still in its embryonic stages. The first batch of 20 Meteor I's were powered by Rolls-Royce Welland W.2B/23 turbojets, each developing 1,700 lb (770 kg) of thrust. This gave a top speed of around 410/415 mph (610/620 kmh), which was no better than contemporary piston-engined fighters. One key advantage of the Meteor was that it maintained a very high top speed at low level, unlike the piston-engined aircraft. The type's first combat duties involved intercepting V-1 flying bombs. Famously, the first such Meteor 'kill' occurred when the pilot used the fighter's wingtip to send the V-1 into a terminal spin, his cannon having jammed. The Meteor was armed with four 20 mm cannon in the nose, which was to become a standard 'fit' for many Western fighters. Originally, it had been intended to use six cannon. However, it turned out that one pair of these could only be removed for servicing while they were still loaded! This was obviously a very dangerous proposition, and so the cannon were removed. As a result the, the Meteor was required nose ballast - the use of bigger engines on later variants did not help this problem.
The Meteor V-1 interceptions were only a sideshow in the grand scheme of things - the Hawker Tempest was by far and away the chief V-1 killer. The Meteor I led in turn to the Meteor III, which was the first main production variant (280 built, although some authorities give different figures). This entered service in December 1944. The side-opening canopy of the first version gave way to a rearwards-sliding version with a better view. The first 15 III's were still equipped with Welland engines. From aircraft EE245 onwards, the engine was the Rolls-Royce Derwent I, with 2,000 lb (900 kg) of thrust. This gave the Meteor a significant boost in performance, although it still fell some way short of the Me 262. Towards the end of the Meteor III production run, lengthened and widened engine nacelles were introduced, which were to become standard on all later variants. The improved aerodynamics finally brought the Meteor to the same performance level as the Me 262, and some aircraft were retrofitted with the revised nacelles.
There were no Meteor v. Me 262 encounters, however. To gain combat experience, some Meteor III's were sent to Holland and Belgium, where they engaged in strafing attacks. Like the Me 262, the early Meteors were indifferent gun platforms, which would have limited their effectiveness as dogfighters - V-1's and ground targets were a much easier proposition.
The Meteor went on to have a long post-war career and was a much-developed and versatile aircraft. Some 3,500 were built in all, with Armstrong-Whitworth gradually taking over production.
This kit was first released in 1969, and to this day remains the only 1/72 injection-molded kit of either the Meteor I or III variants. Most of the attention has been on the post-war variants, almost invariably from smaller companies. As a result, I suspect that many 1/72 scale modellers are familiar with this kit. Like any kit of it's vintage, in has undergone numerous packaging changes. Nowadays, it comes a standard series I/II one-piece box, with the classic Roy Cross artwork properly presented once again. All the parts (on several light grey sprues) are sealed in a plastic bag. Also in this are the canopy and a navigation light, on a small transparency sprue. The kit has 37 parts in total. The instruction booklet is A4 size and 8 pages long. This is very comprehensive, giving detailed background information in five languages, and a straightforward five-step construction guide. This includes in-place painting instructions - remember that Airfix neglected to do this for a very, very long time. For painting and decaling, there are three full-page four-way views for the two aircraft presented. Humbrol colours are used, naturally. The decal sheet is very impressive by Airfix standards, and is immeasurably better than the sheet provided with the kit when I first bought it about twenty years ago.
Two subjects are provided for in the kit, although one has four different options itself. The aircraft are:
The earlier version of the kit that I built only had markings for EE239, and it seems reasonable to assume that a Derwent-powered version was never intended from the outset. In the kit, to produce the later version you have to omit the elongated tail-pipes which protruded from the engine nacelles. This is the only difference in the kit construction. I don't know if the basic nacelles did in fact remain the same. Be that as it may, I chose to build the Derwent-powered aircraft (EE318). Airfix muddles things up by saying that only the Welland-powered version is represented in the kit (which is clearly wrong), and by giving this version the engine power and top speed of the a Derwent I-powered aircraft.
The first task - and the most onerous one - was to remove the rivets. Like many Airfix kits of this era, there are rivets covering the rear 2/3 of the fuselage, as well as on the control surfaces. I removed all of this, leaving the raised detail on the fuselage and wings. After that, construction was very straightforward, as the kit fits very well for its' age. The cockpit consists of a pilot figure (which I used), seat, floor, rear bulkhead and instrument panel. All of these fitted very well, although I added a small horizontal part to seal off the area behind the bulkhead. New to this release of the kit is a detailed-looking instrument panel decal. At this point, I also added the nose undercarriage doors. Because the single-piece undercarriage parts were so basic, I really felt I had no option here. There are resin replacements available for these, but you would still have to address the bare undercarriage bays.
Dry-fitting the fuselage halves before assembly showed a slight misalignment, so I removed the alignment pins before proceeding. I suspect the problem was due to a slight warping, and that the parts themselves are fine. I used tape to hold the halves in proper alignment while the cement was setting. The canopy was a surprisingly poor fit, with a significant gap between it and the fuselage, which required some work to correct. However, it does have the correct kinked profile of the Meteor III canopy, which is good.
The lower wings are provided as a single part, which always makes life a lot easier. After fitting this to the fuselage, I had to fill in a small gap at the back of the wing/fuselage join. The two-piece undercarriage doors were very good fits, and showed a hint of a bulge, which I assume (hope!) was there in real life. Before attaching the upper wings, I attached the blank engine faces and intake splitter plates, as directed by the instructions. You must attach the splitter plates at this point, as it would be impossible to do so after the upper wings have been attached. Even so, I had to trim the sides of these parts down to get them to fit. A small semi-spherical navigation light was fitted under the port wing, and this has to be cemented from the inside of the lower wing. One thing missing was a pitot tube near the end of the port wing leading edge, which I will add once I have a spare moment.
The upper wings were very good fits, with only a small amount of filler being required at the port wing root/fuselage junction, and the usual smoothing down of the leading and trailing edges once everything had set. The tail planes were also a very good fit. This left just the wing airbrakes (upper and lower) and the distinctive fuselage aerial - and that was it!
The Meteor was painted in the semi-gloss (satin) paint schemes introduced near the end of World War II. The normal Humbrol colours for this scheme would be Hu 163 (Dark Green) and Hu 164 (Dark Sea Grey). These correspond to BS641 and BS638 respectively, and have the correct satin finish. Airfix usually follows this standard, but not here. For the Meteor, the camouflage is Hu 163 and Hu 106 Ocean grey, with satin varnish for the latter. As Hu 106 represents one of the major wartime camouflage greys, I suppose it could have been used during a changeover period. Thus, I followed the instructions here. However, for the undersurfaces things were different. This is given as Hu 165 (Sea Grey Medium), which represents BS637. I would guess that this is a typo, and that it should have read Hu 166 (Light Aircraft Grey), which is BS627. As Airfix give only Humbrol codes (no colour descriptions or BS equivalents), this was an easy mistake to make. One problem I had with the upper camouflage is that the various panel lines shown on the painting guide don't match with what's on the kit itself. This is a frequent problem, and a quite annoying one when you have to mark out camouflage demarcation lines. On the plus side, the kit has panel lines to mark the yellow wing leading edge section, so there is no guesswork here.
The decals were probably the best Airfix decals that I've used. They were slightly thicker than some other decals, but their adhesion was excellent, and the satin finish meant that I didn't need to overpaint the wing roundels - they were indistinguishable from the surrounding painted surface. The only problem of note was a small white margin on part of the upper wing roundels. Other than that, I had nothing to complain about. Even manually positioning the roundel centres was easy.
© Kevin Ronayne 2005
Length and wingspan both look very accurate as far as I can determine. I have heard that the engine nacelles do not have quite the correct profile, but I must say that I cannot see any major problems. There may be some minor problems with panel line placement and the like. Also, the wing trailing edges are too thick. That would be quite common for a kit of this scale and this edge.
I must admit to a certain bias here, as the Meteor III is one of my all-time favourite aircraft when it comes to aesthetics. Nonetheless, this is still a good kit to build despite it's age - an ideal kit for the younger modeller. There is still no sign of a competing product after all these years. The best prospects would be Tamiya (who have a 1/48 scale mold), and MPM, for whom the Meteor would be an obvious subject to tackle.
Two useful online sources of information were:
Note: the following related reviews links have not been updated since early 2000's - more kit reviews of this aircraft may now be on SMAKR, not reflected below. Refer to the Index for other kits of this type.
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