ARMSTRONG WHITWORTH METEOR
T.T. MK 20 WD647
(AA000002)

Awaiting collection from Armstrong Whitworth.
Originally built as N.F.11 night fighter.

Flown from Woomera to Archerfield on delivery to QAM having been donated by the British Ministry of Defence.

The take-off from Woomera was aborted twice because of kangaroos on the runway! A refuelling stop was made at Broken Hill where the fuel agent offered the crew AVGAS! Another stop was made at Dubbo. After take-off from Dubbo two F-111s, which had been orbiting overhead, formated on the Meteor. Subsequently two Mirages from 77SQN at Williamtown joined the formation for photography before returning to Williamtown. South of Amberley a Canberra joined the formation which then overflew Amberley and Archerfield. Unfortunately a planned aerobatic display by the Meteor had to be aborted because of a stuck fuel valve in the ventral tank. The fuel state nearly caused the pilot to declare an emergency and divert to Amberley. It was calculated that the aircraft had 10 minutes usable fuel onboard on arrival Archerfield.

The following anecdote was contributed by Malcolm Lloyd who at the time was a Flight Service Officer stationed in Broken Hill:

"Up until the early 90s Australian air traffic services were provided by two main sections; Air Traffic Control and Flight Service. The main difference between the two was that ATC provided positive separation between aircraft, mainly in higher traffic density areas (Controlled Airspace), and FS provided a traffic advisory service in the remainder (Uncontrolled Airspace). Most of the larger country towns with airports had a Flight Service Unit. There was also another section, Operations Control, who oversaw aircraft operating under Instrument Flight Rules in controlled airspace particularly with regard to them meeting statutory fuel requirements. The basic fuel requirement for non-airline civil flights was enough to cover the planned flight plus forty five minutes reserve. If forecast weather at the destination was below certain standards, additional fuel had to be carried, either to hold for a time or to divert to an alternate. At the time of WD647’s flight I was a Flight Service Officer stationed in Broken Hill and being an enthusiast was very excited to see this rare bird. The flight arrived as planned in Broken Hill then the pilot came into the Unit and submitted a flightplan for the leg from Broken Hill to Dubbo. This was a little unusual as in most cases a plan would have been submitted to cover from Woomera through the various stops right through to Brisbane. I accepted and transmitted the flightplan via telex in the usual manner, everything on it looking good to me. A few minutes later I received a phone call from Adelaide Ops – “This flight isn’t carrying enough fuel, he only has twenty minutes reserve, not the required forty five.” I pointed out that being a military flight it was not subject to that requirement. “Are you sure he’s military?” was the next question from Ops. My reply was something along the lines of “Who else operates Meteors?” “Have another look at the flightplan” the Ops controller said. I did and found that the box where the class of operation; private, charter, military etc., should be entered had been left blank. I don’t recall the subsequent conversations with the pilot but obviously things did get sorted out to most peoples’ satisfaction and the flight went ahead."