page_title: Gloster Meteor
section_title: Australia
hierarchical_section_title: Gloster Meteor / Operational service / Australia
caption_attribution_description: Kunsan, South Korea. 1954-06-23. Pilots of No. 77 Squadron RAAF left to right, Roy (Nugget) Hibben, John Arthurson, and Keith Cottee after an operation in their Meteor MK8 jet fighter aircraft. Meteor A77-867 is at left rear and the tail of A77-368 is in the foreground. The latter aircraft is preserved and displayed at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.
context_page_description: The Gloster Meteor was the first British jet fighter and the Allies' only jet aircraft to achieve combat operations during the Second World War. The Meteor's development was heavily reliant on its ground-breaking turbojet engines, pioneered by Frank Whittle and his company, Power Jets Ltd. Development of the aircraft began in 1940, although work on the engines had been under way since 1936. The Meteor first flew in 1943 and commenced operations on 27 July 1944 with No. 616 Squadron RAF. The Meteor was not a sophisticated aircraft in its aerodynamics, but proved to be a successful combat fighter. Gloster's 1946 civil Meteor F.4 demonstrator G-AIDC was the first civilian-registered jet aircraft in the world. Several major variants of the Meteor incorporated technological advances during the 1940s and 1950s. Thousands of Meteors were built to fly with the RAF and other air forces and remained in use for several decades.
  The Meteor saw limited action in the Second World War. Meteors of the Royal Australian Air Force fought in the Korean War. Several other operators such as Argentina, Egypt and Israel flew Meteors in later regional conflicts.
context_section_description: The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) acquired 113 Meteors between 1946 and 1952, 94 of which were the F.8 variant. The first RAAF Meteor was an F.3 delivered for evaluation in June 1946.
  Australia's F.8s saw extensive service during the Korean War with No. 77 Squadron RAAF, part of British Commonwealth Forces Korea. The squadron had personnel from the RAF and other Commonwealth air forces attached to it. It had arrived in Korea equipped with piston-engined Mustangs. To match the threat posed by MiG-15 jet fighters, it was decided to reequip the squadron with Meteors. Jet conversion training was conducted at Iwakuni, Japan, after which the squadron returned to the Korean theatre in April 1951 with about 30 Meteor F.8s and T.7s. The squadron moved to Kimpo Air Base in June, and was declared combat ready the following month. More advanced designs, such as the F-86 Sabre and Hawker P.1081, were considered but would not be available within a realistic time frame; the Meteor proved to be considerably inferior in combat against the MiG-15 in several respects, including speed and manoeuvrability at high altitude.
  On 29 July 1951, 77 Squadron began operating their Meteors on combat missions. The squadron had mainly been trained in the ground attack role, and had difficulties when assigned to bomber escort duty at sub-optimum altitudes. On 29 August 1951, eight Meteors were on escort duty in "MiG Alley" when they were engaged by six MiG-15s; one Meteor was lost and two damaged, and 77 Squadron did not destroy any enemy aircraft. On 27 October, the squadron achieved its first probable followed by two probables six days later. On 1 December there was an intense air battle over Sunchon, between 14 Meteors and at least 20 MiG-15s – in North Korean markings, but operated secretly by the elite Soviet 176th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment (176 GIAP).  77 Squadron lost three Meteors on this occasion, with one pilot killed and two captured, while claiming one MiG destroyed and one damaged. However, Russian records and accounts, which only became public after the end of the Cold War, suggested that no MiGs from 176 GIAP were lost on this occasion.
  At the end of 1951, due to the perceived superiority of the MiGs in air combat – as well as the Meteor's favourable low-level performance and sturdy construction, RAAF commanders had 77 Squadron reassigned to ground-attack duties. In February 1952, more than a thousand sorties were flown in the ground-attack role; these sorties continued until May 1952, when 77 Squadron switched to fighter sweep operations. The last encounter between the Meteor and the MiG-15 was in March 1953, during which a Meteor piloted by Sergeant John Hale recorded a victory. By the end of the conflict, the squadron had flown 4,836 missions, destroying six MiG-15s, over 3,500 structures and some 1,500 vehicles. About 30 Meteors were lost to enemy action in Korea, the vast majority shot down by anti-aircraft fire while serving in a ground-attack capacity.
  The RAAF began introducing a domestically produced, Sabre variant powered by the Rolls-Royce Avon, in 1955, which progressively relegated the older Meteor to training and secondary duties. A number of Meteors would be assigned to the reserve Citizen Air Force, while others were configured as pilotless drone aircraft or for target towing. No. 75 Squadron RAAF was the last Australian squadron to operate the Meteor; notably, it had operated a three-unit aerobatic team, named "The Meteorites".
caption: No. 77 Squadron RAAF pilots and Meteor aircraft in Korea, c. 1952.
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