Home
Newsletter 19
Winter 2008
Updated on 10Feb2008
Contents
Editorial
Betty Bore Praises Pension Trustees
Committee Member RAeS Award
Fifty-Five Years Of Flying
Hawker Association Future
Information Requests
Members
News Harrier
News Hawk
News Hunter
News Lightning II
Riverside Spectacular
Sea Hawk And Cygnet Memories
Thomas H Miller USMC
XZ439 Sea harrier Help Needed
XZ439 Sea harrier Update

Published by the Hawker Association
for the Members.
Copyright © 2007. All rights reserved Hawker Association
 
    From RAF Scampton, Lincs, Hawker Hunter Aviation (HHA) operates twelve ex-Swiss Air Force Mk.58 single seat Hunters and two TMk8 two sea t trainers. HHA also has an ex-German Air Force Sukhoi Su-22 and an ex-RAF Buccaneer.
    HHA , run by Managing Director Mat Poluski, a onetime management consultant in the City, employs five experienced former military pilots and eight full-time air engineering staff who are all senior ex-RAF NCOs.
    The Mk.58 Hunters retain their Swiss radar warning receivers and chaff and flare dispensers but HHA has fitted radar altimeters, upgraded communications equipment and a GPS-aided navigation suite compatible with the RAIDS rangeless instrumented debriefing system pod. An integral radar threat simulator is also to be installed.
    All the modifications and certification have been carried out by HHA. The aircraft are painted in the old standard RAF grey and green camouflage scheme with pale grey undersides, and carry roundels and fin flashes in red and blue. 
Hunter News

top
    The Mk.58s have been allocated serial numbers in the ZZ sequence. On the spines, in white, is the legend "www.hunterteam.com." AvP67 approval has been achieved, endorsing the company's maintenance and operating procedures to military standards, and allowing HHA to undertake UK MoD taskings.
    FRA (Flight Refuelling Aviation) employs the Mk.58 Hunters as fast, agile targets to support the testing of the Sampson radar in the new Type 45 destroyers.
    Qinetiq uses an HHA TMk.8 at the Empire Test Pilots' School (ETPS) at Boscombe Down to demonstrate to students certain flight characteristics that fleet aircraft cannot manage (swept wing spinning? - Ed).
    Further opportunities for contract work are being pursued in the UK and with NATO countries, including trials support, fast jet pilot assessment, training, conversion and currency flying.
    To date the Hunter fleet has flown over 500 incident-free sorties with 99% serviceability, reflecting well on the reliability of the aircraft and the quality of HHA's engineers.
    The Mk.58s are all low-hours airframes, the fleet leader has half its airframe life remaining, so HHA look forward to another ten years of Hunter operations!