The Hunter

I don’t know a single test pilot or aerospace engineer or aircraft technician who doesn’t regard the Hawker Hunter with a sobriquet term of endearment. No jet aircraft was so universally loved on so many levels by so many as the Hawker Hunter. To pilots the Hunter conjured the warmth of a sweetheart. For engineers, they appreciated her quiet yet strong temprament and for mechanics, she was always a ‘Goer.’ The best version of the Hunter was probably the F.6, powered by a Rolls-Royce Avon 207 turbojet that produced some 10,145 lb of thrust. The Hunter wasn’t very fast, neither was she a particularly agile dog fighter either, but she was very predictable and responsive and her solid platform could accommodate plenty of roles that allowed her to evolve with the changing times. When she first entered service in the 60s, the Hunter was a front line gun interceptor. Later in the 70s, when supersonic jets entered the fray. She was repurposed as a low attitude bomber right into the eighties when she was retrofitted with air to air and air to surface missiles.