The Gloster Meteor was the first British jet fighter and the Allies' first operational jet. 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 not an aerodynamically advanced aircraft but the Gloster design team succeeded in producing an effective jet fighter that served the RAF and other air forces for decades. Meteors saw action with the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) in the Korean War, and remained in service with numerous air forces until the 1970s. Two Meteors, WL419 and WA638, remain in service with the Martin-Baker company as ejection seat testbeds.

The Meteor F.4 was the first really successful Meteor. It was Derwent 5 powered with strengthened fuselage, 489 built by Glosters and 46 by Armstrong Whitworth for the Royal Air Force. The F.4 was also exported to Argentina (50 aircraft), Belgium (48 aircraft), Denmark (20 aircraft), Egypt (12 aircraft), Netherlands (38 aircraft).

Proclaiming 'Made in the Czech Republic' on the side of the box. I have a feeling this is actually an MPM mold that was reboxed by Revell AG. Not an unusual occurrence at all and a really good choice.

Two grey and one clear sprue are provided. The canopy is a single piece, further verifying that it is an MPM kit as Revell AG would have designed a thinner two piece windscreen/canopy. Not much to hang from underside on this as only wing and center fuselage fuel tanks are offered.

The cockpit is fairly well done with a seat side consoles, stick and instrument panel. The panel has raised detail and a decal is provided. Typical of these aircraft, there is not a ton of room for weight, but one should be able to cram enough in there to be useful. 10 grams will be needed. There is no boxed in wheel well with the nose gear, a rather fussy three piece construct, being glued to the underside of the cockpit floor.

The main gear wells are separate and fit on the underside of the upper wing. The outer wing panels are separate and simply butt fit to the outside of the engine nacelles. There is a bit of detail on the intakes to show some of the plumbing there on the centrifugal engines. Both large and small intake openings are provided and while they are shown as interchangeable, one really needs to get a photo of the plane being modeled to see which applies.

Main gear are also properly fiddly looking as was the case on the real aircraft. Each wheel is a half construct typical of short run kits.

This kit has RoG's usual newsprint quality instructions with Revell-only paint references and some mixing required. I find this infuriating as many places have no access to Revell paints. Markings are for two 'high speed silver' aircraft. One is the box art plane of 1 Squadron in 1950 with late war insignia. The other is for 606 Squadron RAuxAF with their white and red triangle markings and later insignia from 1951. The decal sheet is well printed and quite complete. I would like to think that there are other decal sheets out there that could be used if someone wants something different.

I have to confess that I was looking forward to this kit and was somewhat mollified that this was little more than a rebox. However, the kit is still a very nice one and sure as heck beats the old Frog kit in terms of detail. Though I still like that old kit and have built a bunch of them over the years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloster_Meteor

December 2011

I got mine at GreatModels where you can find a ton of kits, books, and accessories.

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