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Gloster Meteor F3/F4 for PSS


Andy Meade
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I think this one was born from seeing a large turbine-powered Meteor at one of the LMA Gaydon shows.  I always knew the old Meatbox would be a great subject for the slope, and always had my eyes open for a kit, alas they are pretty rare to non existent....so, it was time to break out SolidWorks and get drawing one up.

 

To my mind, the earlier Meteors are the nicest, with the classic shapely fin with curved wing tips (more wing area too!).  The Derwent-engined versions with their longer nacelles are also a bit more aerodynamic for the slope, so the version was easy to pick.  My plan actually covers most variants, so the later square tails and tear-drop shaped canopies can be used if required.

 

So, the plan then :

 

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The fuselage went together quite quickly with the top and bottom crutch with a battery box nose jig.  The whole fuselage then needs planking carefully to ensure it is straight - this was fairly easy with the fus upside down on the building board, pinned down to a straight line drawn on said board.

 

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The longest part of the wing build is gluing the skins together - 3/32"  in this case.  Birch ply wing braces hold everything together, along with webs  to full span for stiffness.  I added flaps made from 1/16" ply (close to scale shape) to help get the aircraft in on those tighter slopes (Orme NW, Cloud etc.). These will be internally actuated to keep the underside clean.

 

 

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Everything is now glassed and ready for primer and canopy application.  The canopy was created by my faithful beta tester Chris Barlow, who also problem solved the initial design errors and put up with my wing re-design.  Chris' machine is shown here in primer - a lovely size!  Chris also cut his own wing rib set on his CNC laser, my kit and Chris' fuselage parts were cut by SLEC for me at a very reasonable price.

 

Not long now and we'll have two Meatboxes ready to beat up the slopes ?

 

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Chris' model has come along well, now going through final paint. It looks lovely!  There's a funny line around the nose, but fear not - that's the removable nose cone that Chris has used to hide the battery and ballast.

 

A cheeky photobomb by a Sabre in the background too.

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Cheers guys!  Chris does have some latitude with the shiney on his one, as it was used for world speed record attempts.  Twas polished and smoothed, guns removed etc. so should be representative.  Mine will be my usual Halford's satin lacquer over acrylics, then decals and weathering, so a bit more grimey.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well, pretty close to being done now.  A few day's worth of spraying, and she's ready for servo mounting, control surface hinging, pushrod manufacture, and then programming and balancing.  I might do a little light weathering around the gun ports, but I won't go too mad - I know they weren't used all that much.

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

The maiden went very well, with minor damage to one of the nacelles where it flexed upon landing and broke around a layer seam.  I'd forgotten to put any reinforcement formers around the underside, so that's easy to remedy now. Very happy with the flaps - slowed her to a walking pace on landing with only a slight balloon.  C of G slightly further back that it should be too - only 4mm in it, so again an easy remedy.

 

 

 

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It's lovely smooth grass where we land Danny, or at a pinch we can chuck it into the heather  if we have a misbehaving model. 

Even though I got it on the short grass, this still happened - oops! Shona caught this shot at the moment of touchdown.

 

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  • 1 month later...

The Meatbox got some more air time at the LleynMAC PSSA meet, off of a slope I'd not flown before - Cim Farm South.  It has a lovely landing area but the lift wasn't overly buoyant for the windspeed, which could have been down to meteorological effects I guess.  Anyway, she flew well enough and landed without mishap this time!  She is now 2 flights old.

 

Many thanks to Phil for the excellent photos as always.

 

 

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Lovely...on the hell's mouth slopes on the other side the Rhiw antenna can still be seen which was part of the aberporth range system with meteor drones operating from Llanbedr, wrong colour for that but still great, looks brill and flies really well I bet.

 

Missed the airliner as well... 

 

Anyone making a jyndavic sloper or ducted fan, even jet powered. Theres one in a compound right by the road in Farnborough.

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  • 3 months later...

Hi Andy,

Nice build blog... thanks...

 

I'm not sure what year this was done, I hope it wasn't that long ago, but I have to ask...

 

I have just finished a P-38 Lightning PSS build and was poking around looking for my next classic WWII PSS build & your Gloster Meteor got my attention..

 

I'm not a exactly a purerist at scatch builds and do like the laser cut short kits... I noticed that a few of your pics looked like the wing ribs and other bits were laser cut.

 

So here is my question, did you cut these or did you buy them from someone online, like Neil @ iGull... 

 

Thanks... BTW I'm in Canberra AU..

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