Having celebrated VJ-Day and the end of World War Two, work returned to normal at the Gloster final assembly factory at Hucclecote, Gloucestershire. Eight days later, on August 23,1945, Meteor F.III EE358 was accepted by 74 Squadron at Colerne, Wiltshire -the first peacetime handover of the jet fighter. Meteors turned heads wherever they appeared, but in the summer of 1945 they were far from new or even rare for that matter. Gloster was Britain's most experienced manufacturer of jet aircraft, having started in 1941. Designer George Carter had created the E28/39 powered by Frank Whittle's pioneering technology and on May 15,1941 it became the first British jet-powered aircraft to fly.
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