[JoeB]

But the other side of the coin was risking demonstrating that widely used Western fighter types were not competitive with the MiG-15. This is all that use of Meteors by 77Sdn in the air superiority role in 1951 really accomplished, removed any doubt the Meteor was outclassed in the (then typical high altitude) air superiority role by the MiG. Four Meteors were lost to (Soviet AF) MiG's with no losses of MiG's; the Soviets claimed and their leadership probably at least mainly believed they'd downed a much higher number of Meteors, the UN side believed the Meteors had downed at least one MiG, but it's pretty clearly not the case. As a lower altitude strike a/c later on the Meteor performed creditably as did other straightwing jets (also downing 2 PLAAF MiG's for 1 more Meteor loss to a Soviet MiG), but in the big picture that deployment was a mistake in the mind games of global deterrence, given the Meteor's widespread service.

The same would only have happened by trying to use the Venom or Vampire. Again, in favorable lower altitude engagements they might have done OK, but straight wing jets just couldn't fully compete with the MiG in the high Mach high altitude arena. We can now debate that for straightwing types not used in Korea, only because they weren't...

The Hunter and Sea Vixen might have been a different story, but the latter was in no way ready for Korea. Serious redesign was needed to fix the flaws which caused the fatal crash at Farnborough in 1952; hard to imagine use of the early examples in combat would have ended well. With the Hunter it's conceivable, a small batch in 1953. The Soviets according to some accounts used combat trials quantities of the La-15 in Korea, called 'Type 15' in UN reports.

But I'm not sure I agree with your thesis about combat experience (such as was at all possible with British types) influencing fighter design. The British flew F-86's and scored some victories (and suffered some losses); they had a first hand understanding of the Korean situation and the F-86. And US fighter design after only a fairly few years went in a pretty different direction than the F-86, anyway.

Joe