The Little World

And wasn’t that a clever idea, Great Britain? Selling Gloster Meteors to the Israelis and De Havilland Vampires to the Egyptians?

Bit of export cash in the old exchequer, What? And a good leg in either bed, no matter who won, eh? Pip,Pip…!

Looks like GB supplied Meteors to Egypt and Syria as well. Jordan got Vampires.

This Meteor is painted in the ’56 colours. The type had already scored the first jet combat kill in Middle east wars in 55 but there was a limited fighter force in the Sinai conflict. They shared the squadrons with Mystere IV and Ouragan jets.

The kit has provided all that it promised, though future builders would do well to note that Meteors are marginal tail-sitters at the best of times. This one has compressed lead blocks in the fuselage in two spaces as well as the nose of the fuel tank under the belly. Even then the nose wheel barely clings to the tarmac.

The decals are Extradecal found at a shop I used to frequent. The only reason I got lucky with these was there is a set of RAAF decals as well as Danish and Czech on the sheet. As they are all separate liveries, perhaps there could be another Meteor in the future…though I would prefer the Israeli night fighter version as well . there is a real old one of these in Hatzerim already.

Note as well that the wheel and landing gear assemblies fit perfectly into their respective wheel wells, but the complex four-part assembly that involves separate tyres for each wheel are not as well fitting as one would expect. The future builder would do well to sand and thin the tyres before trying them into the mud guards.