Gloster Meteor F3/F8...bare metal or not?

O

OBIO

Retired SOH Admin
The Alphasim Gloster Meteor package has a gray/bare metal skin for the F3 and F8. Were these infact bare metal or where these planes painted a light gray. I have tweaked the MDLs for full reflective texturing and have the F3 nearly painted up in a nice reflective bare metal...looks great...but I am not sure if these planes were in fact bare metal. I am still going to do the planes up in bare metal, but if they were painted, I will do a version with the planes painted a light gray as well.

OBIO
 
dull metal i believe Obio, as in not fully reflective... most were painted light grey if i recall. and another with reflectivity?... you really are making my day today buddy! could you whip that over? :ernae: your drinks are on me in the mess tonight :ernae:
 
IIRC F.3's were painted overall white for recognition purposes but by the time they brought in F.8's they were bare metal HTH
 
GlosterMeteor1oClock.jpg

DeHVampire-01,GlosterMeteor.jpg

Dull metal....

Gloster_meteor_of_martin_baker_wl419_arp.jpg

Greyish Hi-Vi test aircraft for MB...

WH291_99.jpg

Very Light Grey...
 
So, bare metal but not polished bare metal. Very dull, oxidized aluminum kind of thing going on. Got it.

Smoothie, the reflective MDLs will be in your e-mail in box shortly.

OBIO
 
Going a bit OT in my own thread.....but, has anyone done a dedicated flight dynamics set for the Meteor F8? I know the F8 had different engines than the F3, and the F8 has all the extra fuel tanks (wing mounted and a guess that bulge underneath the fuselage is also a fuel tank). Would be nice to have the F3 and the F8 behave like they should.

OBIO
 
OBIO said:
So, bare metal but not polished bare metal. Very dull, oxidized aluminum kind of thing going on. OBIO
Click to expand...

Another possibility is aluminized silver paint. The silver color looks a bit too uniform to be bare metal, which would usually look a little different from one panel to the next. But it would probably get more uniform as it weathered and dulled. Tough call! I suspect silver paint, but I'm guessing...
 
I think mine is a little to shiny, lol.

Jamie

PS. Obio, you've got a PM (or at least, will have after I've typed it :d)
 
As I mentioned F.3's were all white

"The war ended with the Meteors having destroyed 46 German aircraft through ground attack and having faced more problems through misidentification as the Me 262 by Allied aircraft and flak than from the Luftwaffe. To counter this, continental-based Meteors were given an all-white finish as a recognition aid."

HTH
 
I think that apart from the all white emergency recognition scheme most F3's were in standard day fighter camouflage. I have a pic of F3 EE243 YQ*U of 616 Squadron in full camo with sky tail band but no yellow leading edge on the wings. Another pic has unreadable codes, but the upper wing roundels are clearly type 'C' with the narrow white ring. By the time bare metal returned the F4, and then F8, would have arrived and the F3 would have gone.
 
dhasdell said:
I think that apart from the all white emergency recognition scheme most F3's were in standard day fighter camouflage. I have a pic of F3 EE243 YQ*U of 616 Squadron in full camo with sky tail band but no yellow leading edge on the wings. Another pic has unreadable codes, but the upper wing roundels are clearly type 'C' with the narrow white ring. By the time bare metal returned the F4, and then F8, would have arrived and the F3 would have gone.
Click to expand...

Many & varied were the schemes of the Meteor III - as noted above, they had the all-white scheme when they were based on the continent. When they were introduced into service though both they (and the Mk I that preceded them) did indeed use standard day fighter camo; but you are going to have to research your individual scheme carefully, as they used diffferent combinations of Type B/Type C1 on the wings, some with yellow leading edges, some without..... I know at least a couple also wore the yorkshire rose on their tail.

And Meteor III's (or were they Meteor 3's by then?) did also wear natural metal as, of course, 616 went back to being an Auxiliary Squadron after the war, initially with Mossies but eventually reissued with Meteors. You could look here for a good start on the subject.

Andy
 
Obio

Go to the pond - Look in the Air Pictorial section in the library you will find Camoflage and Markings #11 specifically for the meteor 111 courtesy of Dave Jerram


Leif
 
meteor paint schemes

I worked on various marks of meteor int he late sixties in the far east and clocked up 450 hours as a target towing operator in both TT20 (converted NF11/NF13) and on the T7.
Meteors were never bare metal. The silver finish was sometimes matt, and sometimes gloss, but were always painted. Some were grey. The grey jobs were on later refurbs and looked really nice. One of our unit's F8's (WA880) is still flying with the Queensland Air Museum with 77sqdn markings.

Hope this is helpfull
 
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