Still reaching for the skies
QUESTION What is the world’s oldest jet aircraft that’s still operational? The Gloster Meteor twinengined fighter was the first jet to serve with the RAF and the only Allied jet to reach combat in World War II. Designed by George Carter, the prototype took off in great secrecy from RAF Cranwell in Lincolnshire on March 5, 1943. Almost 4,000 were produced, most of which saw service with the RAF between 1944 and 1965.
Based at RAF Manston in Kent, the Meteors, with a top speed of more than 400 mph, were used to combat the menace of hitler’s V-1 flying bombs.
The first sorties were flown on July 27, 1944, by 616 Sqn, and Meteors notched up their first V-1 ‘kills’ on August 2, 1944.
By the end of the war, 16 RAF squadrons were equipped with Meteor F.3s. Soon afterwards, the F.4 version, 170 mph faster than its predecessor, was flown.
By 1951, 20 RAF squadrons were flying the Meteor, and it became one of the bestloved aircraft in the air force inventory.
There are still five operational Meteors in the world — four in Britain and one in Australia. The Classic Air Force museum in Coventry is home to two.
Gloster Meteor T.7 WA591 returned to the sky in 2003 after a 20-year restoration to become the world’s oldest flyable jet aircraft. Built by Gloster Aircraft at hucclecote, Gloucestershire, in mid-1949, it was delivered to the RAF on September 2.
Gloster Meteor NF 11 WM167, built under licence by Armstrong Whitworth at Baginton (Coventry) airport in 1952, is the only night fighter model still airworthy.
Two Meteor T.7s, WA638 and WL419, have been used by Martin- Baker Ltd in Oxfordshire since 1952 to test ejection seats. An operational Meteor F.8, Vh-MBX (ex-RAF VZ467), was exported to the Temora Aviation Museum in New South Wales in 2001. It was also built in 1949, but is thought to be slightly older than WA591.
J. S. Williams, Wolverhampton.
QUESTION Is there any scientific evidence that women have a higher tolerance to pain than men? DIFFeReNT researchers have come to various conclusions. In animals, pain studies have had every possible outcome and proved to be inconclusive. In humans, the question of perception makes scientific comparison difficult, and some believe we will never find an accurate way to compare the pain two people feel. We can translate the pain into different values on a chart, but individual sensitivity to that pain is still subjective.
A princess might feel a pea under 20 mattresses only because she is mollycoddled, while her hardier, more independent sister might sleep like a log on a whole bed of peas.
A recent review in the British Journal Of Anaesthesia concluded: ‘The expansive body of literature in this area clearly suggests men and women differ in their responses to pain, with increased pain sensitivity and risk for clinical pain most commonly observed among women.’
Whatever experts say, many women insist that those who bear the agony of childbirth must have a higher pain tolerance than their partners. But perhaps it is worth noting that women are proven to succumb to emotional pain more quickly than men.
Research suggests factors contributing to perceptions of pain level include hormones, genetics and psychology, all of which vary between men and women.
It is even possible that male and female pain systems work differently or that women experience more severe forms of disease than men. Emilie Lamplough, Trowbridge, Wilts.
QUESTION Was there any planned French military involvement for the D-Day operations of June 1944, covert or otherwise? FReNCh military personnel were not extensively involved in D-Day, but Free French forces did take part in land, sea and air operations.
Four British-built navy ships had Free French crews: the light cruisers Montcalm and Georges Leygues in front of the artillery battery between Gold and Omaha beaches; the destroyer Roselys off Omaha Beach; and the destroyer La Combattante off Juno beach.
These ships engaged shore installations and provided artillery support for the troops engaged in the landings. Air operations between June 5 and 6, under the codename Operation Neptune, involved three RAF squadrons of Free French fighter aircraft and two RAF squadrons of Free French bombers.
There were two separate Army engagements. The first was the participation of four ‘sticks’ of eight Free French Army paratroopers dropped into Brittany. They were members of the Special Air Service Brigade and were dropped behind enemy lines to conduct sabotage operations.
The first French soldier known to have been killed on D-Day was Cpl emile Bouetard, who died at Plumelec, Brittany.
The second engagement involved two units from No 10 Inter-allied Commando attached to No 4 Commando of 1st Special Service Brigade. They went ashore on Sword Beach with a total of 176 men.
They captured the heavily defended Riva Bella Casino in Ouistreham before moving forward to join the rest of the brigade on the River Orne, where they anchored the right flank of the 6th Airborne Division, the captors of Pegasus Bridge.
Meanwhile, on orders from London, the French Resistance carried out hundreds of acts of sabotage on communications networks, railways and other infrastructure vital to the German war effort.
These were high-risk operations because any Resistance member captured would be sentenced to death automatically.
By 1944, Free French forces numbered about 400,000 soldiers, sailors and airmen. Most were involved in operations in French colonies that were under the control of the Vichy government or threatened by it, especially those in North and Central Africa.
Following D-Day, there were many Free French troops in France, where they were involved in the breakout from the Normandy beachhead and spearheaded the Allied advance on Paris.
Bob Dillon, Edinburgh.