1/48 Classic Airframes Gloster Meteor T7

501 Squadron

by Dean Large

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Imagine the scene. You’re 18 years old, and in the RAF for your National Service. You find yourself sitting in the back of the CO’s Meteor trainer, upside down, about 10,000 feet up, AND GETTING PAID FOR IT! That was the position my Dad was in in the early 1950’s, and being the bloke who packed the parachutes, he always had one hanging up in the section fully adjusted for his small size ready for when the CO was flying and had a spare seat going. Happy days.  

Half a century later, I decided to make a model of the very aircraft he used to fly in, and present it to him on a base…research is under way to find the serial number of the actual aircraft, so if anybody knows what plane was used in 501 Squadron Royal Auxiliary Air Force at RAF Filton in 1952-53, I’d appreciate the gen. In the meantime, I thought you might like to see how the plane looks so far. It hasn’t been weathered, as my Dad specified he didn’t want it to be…it is a presentation model, after all.

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I started off with the only available kit of the T7, that from Classic Airframes. I was initially impressed by the resin cockpit and engine components, but then doubt set in as I read the instructions…”additional time will be required to clean up and fit the parts,” they said. If the manufacturer doesn’t think things are going to fit, that doesn’t bode well! True to form, every single piece failed to fit. Every one. Every single one. Every bloody single one! I spent ages with a dremel grinding things to fit, and when the parts were in place, huge quantities of putty and filler were needed. I lost count of the number of times I filled and sanded the engine nacelles, and in doing so, lost all of the surface detail. Luckily, I’d recently invested in some scribing templates which I was keen to try out. All other scribing was done against Dymo tape. All the panel lines on the nacelles were put there by me, so if there are any inaccuracies, sorry!  

In order for the model to sit on its wheels, I had to find room for about ten pounds (seemed like it) of noseweight between the leading edge of the wing and the nose. Where?! The whole space is filled with cockpit! Luckily my Dad had specified he wanted the canopy closed, so I was able to secrete six (count ‘em, six!) .38 calibre lead bullets in there by hammering them flat, chopping them up and inserting them where ever I could make them invisible. The canopy itself was a pain, with very soft moulded frame detail necessitating each of the 17 window apertures to be individually masked with tape cut to the exact size before spraying.

Then after many applications of filler and primer, and with rescribing complete, it was ready for paint. I decided to use Alclad II Aluminium, as it worked well on my Mustang, and gave just the right silvery paint colour without the out-of-scale glittery specks you get with ordinary  silver paint. I checked my pictures of a real Meteor at Duxford, and was satisfied that I’d got the right colour. Many painting problems ensued, all of my own making and with which I will not bore you. Let’s just say that Tamiya gloss acrylics need AGES to dry before being masked over!  

On to markings. The colour scheme is entirely from my Dad’s memory as no known photos exist of this particular aircraft, plus one or two references which showed the yellow Target Towing stripes on the tail and wings. I’d contacted Classic Airframes via the internet, and explained what I was up to, as they also produce a Meteor F8 with markings for 501 Squadron, my Dad’s old unit. I enquired as to the possibility of getting hold of the unit markings alone, the black and gold triangles either side of the fuselage roundel, and was rewarded with a set, via airmail, absolutely free. How’s that for service? Hats off to CA! Unfortunately, as I applied the decals, I found them to be very brittle, and they shattered irrecoverably. Luckily, I’d had the foresight to scan the unit markings into my computer beforehand, and was therefore able produce a reasonable facsimile, but it’s not exactly what I would have hoped for. The other markings (“custom printed by Microscale”) reacted badly to MicroScale’s own decal solutions, so I had to make do without the solutions. 

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All in all, building for others is more difficult than I’d expected.  Maybe it was the thought of doing something of this type for someone else that made me try too hard, maybe it was the kit itself, maybe it was just bad luck, I don’t know. What I do know is that although I put a lot of hours into this to get it looking somewhere near decent, the look on my Dad’s face when he saw it in his squadron’s colours was worth all the aggravation. The final picture shows the model on its base made from a picture frame, with the 501 Squadron crest in the corner and the brass plaque I had made for the front. There’s nothing as good as making somebody grin, is there?  

If anybody out there was in 501 ( County of Gloucester ) Squadron from 1951-54 and knew Senior Aircraftsman Gordon Large, always known as “Chota” ( from chota wallah, meaning “little feller” ), feel free to say hi.

Dean

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Photos and text © by Dean Large