Tony Buttler AMRAeS details the development of the Meteor night fighter
The de Havilland Mosquito was a huge success, but the advances made in military aircraft development following the end of the Second World War soon made the night fighter versions of this piston-powered aircraft out of date. In fact, the need for a replacement became quite urgent because the Mosquito was incapable of dealing with the new jet-powered bombers expected to join the Soviet Union’s air arms. Therefore, in January 1947 specification F.44/46 was raised to open a programme for a new night fighter — this eventually led to the Gloster Javelin. However, for a number of reasons that aircraft’s development proved to be long and slow (the Javelin did not enter service until 1956), so in due course an interim Mosquito replacement with improved performance was also proposed to fill the gap. The result was the night fighter version of the Gloster Meteor.
