Who could this old chap be....?

[Keith Webb]

Originally posted by Mike Kelly
A Tasmanian maybe , his Meteor was named HALESTORM ? It had a little map. of Tassie on it ( don't laugh ) only Australians will know the implications !

Mike

Almost on the mark, Mike - it was a former Taswegian whose name is George Hale, and the Museum's F8 Meteor is painted to represent his aircraft, which was the most significant Australian Korean War machine.
Why?
George Hale was involved in the last RAAF dogfight to have occurred, and in that action he shot down one MiG confirmed and another as a probable.
I interviewed George last week at the Temora Aviation Museum, where he was reunited with "his" Meteor.
Awesome stuff. George was determined to climb into his Meteor unassisted and for a while just sat there reminiscing about the aircraft and his time in Korea. The MiGs he was in combat with were diving to attack a pair of US RF-80 aircraft - were they ever happy to see him!

In this pic you can see the picture on the wall behind of George on the day he returned after combat. One of the ground crew had written "MiG Killer" in the soot around the cannon ports.