Meteor T7 The prototype trainer made its first flight on the 19th of March 1948 and the Meteor T7's maiden flight was on the 26th of October 1948. The type entered service with the RAF in December 1948. Meteors were the first jet trainers in service and marked the end of the conversion from piston powered aircraft to jets. Over 680 Meteor T7 aircraft were built with orders coming from the Royal Navy and overseas. Production ceased in 1954, the last aircraft built was given the service serial number XF279. In its training variant the Meteor was lengthened by 30 inches to allow for the second cockpit, the armament was removed and full dual controls were fitted. To improve endurance provision was made for the fitting of three drop tanks. Performance of the T7 was so good that it out performed the fighter version in a number of ways. By the middle of the 1950s Meteors were being replaced by a combination of Provost and Vampires, although they continued to serve alongside Vampire T11s until the late 1950s. In RAF service the Meteor was employed at a number of Advanced Flying Training Schools and provided conversion to jets for pilots coming from piston engined trainers such as the Harvard. Conversion courses for the pilots lasted 14 or 18 weeks with the first course commencing in August 1949 at No 203 AFS at Driffield. At its peak the Meteor served with approximately 10 Advanced Flying Schools and five Operational Conversion Units. Although the training role of the Meteor was replaced by the Vampire a number of operational stations continued to operate the Meteor for continuation and refresher training.

Piston Provost At the end of the 1940s the British Air Ministry issued Operational Requirement 257, this defined the need for a new, higher performance, piston-engined trainer. The Air Ministry were convinced that the existing training sequence of Percival Prentice to Harvard was inadequate preparation for their jet pilot trainees for frontline flying duty. While speed was not a prime concern of OR 257, a cruising speed of 110 knots was required, along with an endurance of at least two hours flying time. Of the 15 companies involved in the fierce competition for design approval, Percival led the pack because it had privately developed a mockup trainer that anticipated many of the RAF's requirements. Called the P56 the Percival entry also had the edge because their early start made them the only firm able to meet the time limits specified by the RAF for delivery of a prototype. Thus, an initial order for 200 of the aircraft was placed with Percival in May, 1951. The Provost was a two-seat, side-by-side low-wing monoplane with fixed landing gear of the tailwheel variety, powered by a 550hp Alvis Leonides 126 radial engine. In 1953, the first production P56 joined the Central Flying School's Basic Training Squadron at South Cerney as the RAF's standard basic trainer, called the Provost T Mk1. More than 330 of the aircraft were eventually delivered to the RAF over a period of 3 years, during which time (1954) Percival became part of the Hunting Group. The Provost remained in service until they were replaced by a major revision of the design that evolved the P.6 Provost into the Jet Provost trainer, which eventually evolved into the Strike Master multi-role trainer and light attack aircraft in 1967. A total of 461 Provosts were built by the time production ended in 1959. Long after its retirement as a trainer with the RAF, Piston Provosts went to war in the Dhofar as part of the SOAF. To quote the pilot Ralph Swift , "This is the Piston Provost fully armed and ready for war. It was seriously underpowered with it's Alvis Leonides engine during the hot summer months, it required full boost a lot of the time and an eye had to be kept on the cylinder head temperatures". Read more about Ralph Swift's exploits here.