Gloster Meteor F8 "Prone Pilot"

This Gloster Meteor F8, serial WK935, was rebuilt as a research aircraft to test whether a pilot could fly lying on his stomach. In the early 1950s a prone cockpit looked attractive because it would shrink the frontal area of a fighter and let aircrew withstand higher g forces, an idea Bristol wanted to use in a rocket-powered fighter proposal. Armstrong-Whitworth converted the last production F8 as an in-house project, fitting a custom couch, an offset control column and suspended rear pedals in a new front cockpit, keeping the standard cockpit behind it and adding a Meteor NF 12 tail. It joined the RAF Institute of Aviation Medicine in autumn 1954 and logged about 55 hours over 99 flights. The trials showed the concept worked but left the pilot with poor rearward view and a difficult escape, and g-suits offered a simpler remedy. WK935 survives in a museum collection.