Your Aeromedia chief editor and Gianni Siccardi documented this aircraft (SE-DCH) along with its SE-DCF twin at Gosselies airport in Belgium during their Europa Tour in 1971. At first the two aviation globetrotters were surprised to see civil registrations on military aircraft which had clearly been abandoned for quite some time. They were two-seaters with no trace of paint, fitted with long nose radomes, ventral containers, wing tanks and windsock-type target release mechanisms. Successive archive research traced the complex careers of both aircraft. It is enough to say that they were acquired by Carl Gustav von Rosen, the Swedish "Flying Count", to provide Biafra, a secessionist Nigerian region subject to air blockade and consequent starvation, with a minimum of air support. In early 1971 the two Meteors flew to Gosselies for the reinstallation of their wing cannons. For the full coverage about the two aircraft and the accomplishments of the "Flying Count" please refer to the book Europa Tour 1971.
In the picture: Gloster Meteor TT Mk 20 SE-DCH of Svenska Flygvekstäder with its twin SE-DCF in the background, built in 1953 by Armstrong Whitworth as Meteor NF Mk 11 night fighters for the RAF, while impounded at Gosselies in 1971. (Aeromedia)
(Aeromedia, February 2017)
