
The Hawker Hunter was a British fighter jet which entered in service within the RAF in 1954 and which was able to reach supersonic speeds in a light dive. It's in 1946 that the British governement asked to his builders a new jet interceptor, request that will be answered in 1948 by the society Hawker with an aircraft derived from the Sea Hawk, the prototype received several modifications such as the air intakes, initially located in the nose, which were relocated to the wing roots to allow to place the 4 30mm canons in the nose. The prototype first flew in July 1951.
Introduced to the service in 1954, the first variants, the F.1 with an engine Avon, and the F.2, with an engine Sapphire, suffered of several problems like a very limited range, several problems at the level of their engines due to the design of their air intakes and others problems around the canons which caused flashbacks within the reactor because of the cartridge cases which damaged the aircraft. Those problems began to be resolved in 1955 with the F.4 variant which had an upgraded version of the Avon engine as well as a cartridge cases collector under the cockpit.
At the end, it's over 2000 aircrafts that have been built and whose 500 of them were built under license in the Netherlands and in Belgium and served in around 20 different countries. It was used in several conflicts such as the Suez Crisis in the 50s and the Yemen Independence War in the 60s with the RAF, during the 1973 Chilean coup d'état, by Jordan during the Six Days War and by Iraq and Jordan during the Yom Kippur War and by India during the Second and Third Indo-Pakistani Wars.
It first was withdrawn from duty by both the RAF and the Netherlands Air Force in the late 60s and the last exemples were withdrawn in 2014 from the Lebanese Air Force which was still using 4 of these aircrafts. Today, several Hunters are still being used by private companies for several purposes such as for Apache Aviation which uses them as foes to train military pilots to dogfights.
This aircraft is the Hawker Hunter T.68 c/n 41HR/670803, coded J-4201 and now registrated HB-RVR, a former aircraft which belonged to the Swiss Air Force which was built in 1975 and is now operated by an association in Switzerland.
Introduced to the service in 1954, the first variants, the F.1 with an engine Avon, and the F.2, with an engine Sapphire, suffered of several problems like a very limited range, several problems at the level of their engines due to the design of their air intakes and others problems around the canons which caused flashbacks within the reactor because of the cartridge cases which damaged the aircraft. Those problems began to be resolved in 1955 with the F.4 variant which had an upgraded version of the Avon engine as well as a cartridge cases collector under the cockpit.
At the end, it's over 2000 aircrafts that have been built and whose 500 of them were built under license in the Netherlands and in Belgium and served in around 20 different countries. It was used in several conflicts such as the Suez Crisis in the 50s and the Yemen Independence War in the 60s with the RAF, during the 1973 Chilean coup d'état, by Jordan during the Six Days War and by Iraq and Jordan during the Yom Kippur War and by India during the Second and Third Indo-Pakistani Wars.
It first was withdrawn from duty by both the RAF and the Netherlands Air Force in the late 60s and the last exemples were withdrawn in 2014 from the Lebanese Air Force which was still using 4 of these aircrafts. Today, several Hunters are still being used by private companies for several purposes such as for Apache Aviation which uses them as foes to train military pilots to dogfights.
This aircraft is the Hawker Hunter T.68 c/n 41HR/670803, coded J-4201 and now registrated HB-RVR, a former aircraft which belonged to the Swiss Air Force which was built in 1975 and is now operated by an association in Switzerland.
Category Photography / Miscellaneous
Species Unspecified / Any
Size 1280 x 779px
File Size 452 kB
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