#military #aviation #history - Paralleling Germany’s development of the #Messerschmitt #Me262 and #Me163, the #RAF Gloster Meteor paved the way for jet age of the fighters to come and signaled the beginning of the end for piston fighters.

However, I must confess that its performance advantages seem to be so negligible over its some of its piston-engine RAF contemporaries that I don’t see its benefit, at least in Gloster Meteor Mark I guise.  Its true function, in some ways, was to serve as a springboard to more advanced, more compelling versions of the Gloster Meteor that followed post-World War II.

The pictured Gloster Meteor is in Belgium’s air forces’s markings and overlooks the lovely Belgian town of Dinant and the Meuse River.  

For comparison, see nice photos of the Me-262.  The Me-262 is very similar in configuration. Yet the Me-262's twin engines are pods not integrated into the wing. The Gloster Meteor's wings are shorter, wider and stubbier with quasi-squared ends.