General

The Hawker Hunter was a jet fighter aircraft of the 1950s and 1960s. The Hunter served for many years with the Royal Air Force and was widely exported, serving with 19 air forces. A total of 1,972 Hunters were produced by Hawker Siddeley and under licence.

The Hunter Mk. 1 entered service with the Royal Air Force in July of 1954. It quickly became apparent that the new fighter had insufficient fuel capacity. In addition, incorrectly-designed air intakes produced disruptions in air flow to the engine, with resultant compressor stalls. The engine problems were compounded by ingestion of gas when the cannon were fired, which resulted in flame outs. The potential solutions of cutting fuel to the engine when the cannon fired and restricting the use of cannon to low speeds and altitudes were obviously unsatisfactory. The Mk. 2 produced at the same time which used the Armstrong-Siddeley Sapphire engine did not suffer from flame outs. Furthermore, ejected cannon ammunition links had a tendency to strike and damage the underside of the fuselage. The original split flap air brakes caused adverse changes in pitch trim and were quickly replaced by a single ventral air brake. Unfortunately, this meant the air brake could not be used for landings. Finally, the canopy suffered from fogging and icing during rapid descents.

The first Hunter prototype was fitted with an afterburning Avon RA.7R with 9,600 lbf (42.70 kN) of thrust and other aerodynamic refinements (most noticeably a pointed nose). Dubbed Hunter Mk. 3, on September 7th, 1953 it set a speed record of 1,163.2 km/h over a 3 kilometre course.

To address the problem of range, a production Hunter Mk. 1 was fitted with a new wing which featured fuel bladders in the leading edge and 'wet' hard points. This increased the internal fuel capacity from 1533 to 1833 liter. In addition, a single 454 liter external fuel tank could be carried under each wing. The resulting Hunter Mk. 4 first flew on October 20th, 1954 entering service in March of 1955. A distinctive Hunter feature added on the Mk. 4 was the pair of blisters under the nose which collected spent ammunition links to prevent airframe damage. Crews dubbed them 'Sabrinas' after the contemporary movie star. The Sapphire-powered version of the Mk. 4 was designated the Hunter Mk. 5. Although the Sapphire did not suffer from the flame out problems of the Avon and had better fuel economy, the RAF elected to persevere with the Avon in order to simplify supply and maintenance, since the same engine was also used by the Canberra bomber.

To deal with surging and flame out problems, Rolls-Royce fitted the Avon with a new automatic fuel system and redesigned compressor. The resulting Avon 203, producing 10,000 lbf (44.48 kN) of thrust, was fitted to Hawker P.1099, which became the definitive Hunter Mk. 6. The other crucial revision on the Mk. 6 was the new 'Mod 228' wing, which had a larger area, a distinctive 'dogtooth' leading edge notch to alleviate the pitch-up problem, and four 'wet' hard points, finally giving the aircraft a good ferry range.

Characteristics

In service with 349 squadron

The Mk. 4 version of the Hawker Hunter served within the squadron. It's presence however was short-lived, only 11 months to be exact. The Hunter served as a stop-gap measure to replace the rapidly aging Gloster Meteor F. Mk. 8. The staff of the Belgian Air Force hadn't decided on a replacement yet when the Meteor needed an urgent replacement. Therefore it was decided to equip 349 squadron with the Mk. 4 version of the Hunter. These aircraft became available when a major restructuring of the Air Force was endorsed after the ending of the Korean conflict and the budget of the Defense Department was cut with one third after 1956. This forced the staff to cut a number of squadrons already re-equipped with the Hunter. Albeit the service life within 349 squadron was the shortest of any aircraft the squadron has flown with over the years.