Editing Gloster Meteor (section)

===Performance===
[[File:hunter and meteor at kemble arp.jpg|thumb|Meteor NF.11 (right) flying with a [[Hawker Hunter]] T7A at the [[Cotswold Air Show]] in 2009]]
During development, sceptical elements of the Air Ministry had expected mature piston-powered aircraft types to exceed the capabilities of the Meteor in all respects except that of speed; thus, the performance of early Meteors was considered favourable for the interceptor mission, being capable of out-diving the majority of enemy aircraft.<ref>Butler and Buttler 2006, pp. 13–14.</ref> The conclusion of in-service trials conducted between the Meteor F.3. and the [[Hawker Tempest|Hawker Tempest V]] was that the performance of the Meteor exceeded the Tempest in almost all respects and that, barring some manoeuvrability issues, the Meteor could be considered a capable all-round fighter.<ref>Butler and Buttler 2006, pp. 27–28.</ref> Pilots formerly flying piston-engine aircraft often described the Meteor as being exciting to fly. British politician [[Norman Tebbit]] stated of his experience flying the Meteor in the RAF: "Get airborne, up with the wheels, hold it low until you were about 380 knots, pull it up and she would go up, well we thought then, like a rocket".<ref>BBC4 "Jet! When Britain Ruled the Skies." Episode 1. Military Marvels. First broadcast 22 August 2012</ref>

Early jet engines consumed a lot more fuel than the piston engines they replaced so the Welland engines imposed considerable flight-time limitations on the Meteor F.1, leading to the type being used for local interception duties only. In the post-war environment, there was considerable pressure to increase the range of interceptors to counter the threat of bombers armed with [[nuclear weapon]]s.<ref name = "shack 129">Shacklady 1962, p. 129.</ref> The long-term answer to this question was [[Aerial refueling|in-flight refuelling]]; several Meteors were provided to [[Cobham plc|Flight Refuelling Limited]] for trials of the newly developed [[Aerial refueling#Probe-and-drogue 2|probe-and-drogue]] refuelling techniques. This capability was not incorporated in service Meteors, which had already been supplanted by more modern interceptor aircraft at this point.<ref>Shacklady 1962, pp. 129–131.</ref>

A total of 890 Meteors were lost in RAF service (145 of these crashes occurring in 1953 alone), resulting in the deaths of 450 pilots. Contributory factors in the number of crashes were the poor brakes, failure of the landing gear, the high fuel consumption and consequent short flight endurance (less than one hour) causing pilots to run out of fuel, and difficult handling with one engine out due to the widely set engines. The casualty rate was exacerbated by the lack of ejection seats in early series Meteors;<ref>{{citation|first=Miguel|last=Vasconcelos|title=Civil Airworthiness Certification: Former Military High-Performance Aircraft|publisher=Federal Aviation Administration|year=2013|pages=2–40}}</ref> the much higher speed that the aircraft was capable of meant that to bail out pilots might have to overcome high [[g force]]s and fast-moving airflow past the cockpit; there was also a greater likelihood of the pilot striking the horizontal tailplane.<ref>Marks, Paul. [http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150521-the-rocket-powered-life-saving-seat "The Rocket-Powered Rise of the Ejector Seat."] BBC News, 21 May 2015.</ref> Ejection seats were fitted in the later F.8, FR.9, PR.10 and some experimental Meteors.<ref name = "shack 73">Shacklady 1962, p. 73.</ref><ref>Kenyon, Dennis. "The Night It Rained Meteors". ''Loop Aviation'', June 2008.</ref>{{page needed|date=March 2022}} The difficulty of bailing out of the Meteor had been noted by pilots during development, reporting several contributing design factors such as the limited size and relative position of the cockpit to the rest of the aircraft, and difficulty in using the two-lever jettisonable hood mechanism.<ref>Butler and Buttler 2006, p. 18.</ref>