Monday 30 May 2016

Armstrong Whitworth NF.14 - Foreign Users

It's time for the foreign users of the last variant of the Meteor Night Fighter.


  • Biafra: In the context of the Nigerian civil war, the Biafran government was able of setting-up a tiny air force composed by second-hand airplanes like the Douglas A-26 Invader, piloted by mercenaries. As they lacked fighters, they managed to stage a fake film-producer company named Enterprise Films, that bought two Meteors NF.14, that by then, they were completely outdated in the United Kingdom with the subterfuge of being used in a war film. When sent to Biafra, one of them crashed during the ferry flight between Madeira island and Cape Verde (both of them under Portuguese rule back then) and the second had to land in the city of Bissau, also under Portuguese rule, due to some technological failure. It was abandoned there and was never handed over to the Biafran authorities in 1967.
  •  France: Apparently the French Centre d'Essais en Vol (CEV) bought even another variant of the Meteor to use it in the CEV. It was probably used to perform some experiments that would help to develop another airplanes.









Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloster_Meteor
2. Salamander Books- The Complete Book of Fighters
3. Hall Park Books - Warpaint series 22 - Gloster Meteor
4. https://defenceoftherealm.wordpress.com/2015/07/26/the-biafran-meteor-caper/

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