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Old 05-14-2019, 11:17 AM
hyair hyair is offline
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Hunter early development stages

The Hunter was developed by Hawker company and his slim and nice silhouette can be attributed to Sydney Cam who was also the designer of the elegant Comet.
The Hunter first flight was in 1951 and the design was based on the earlier Sea Hawk but with
longer body and 45 degrees swept wings and tail surfaces. Along with the Hunter Supermarine developed the Swift. Both were very promising at the beginning in 1952. As we can see the british aerospace industry was lagging behind the Americans. At the time that
the hunter went into service in 1955 they already had the F-100 and F-102 both supersonic in level flight.
The Hunter F-1 and 4 suffered from short range and engine cut offs when firing with the 4 x 30 mm guns located in the gun pack under the nose.
The solution came in the F-6 model that had the Avon 207 with some 10000 lb thrust along some aerodynamic aids like the saw tooth wing and another two pylons in the wings for carrying weapons or fuel tanks.
Meanwhile the Swift proved to be a total failure due to its bad flight characteristics at high altitude and was not put into service with the RAF. Only two squadrons of reconnaissance Swift FR-5 served in West Germany for a couple of years as low level reconnaissance planes.
As the production rate of the Hunter increased there was a need for a trainer version.
Two options was considered - one with a tandem arrangement and side by side which won despite lower top speed caused by the widened cross section nose.
Because of flutter and vibrations the canopy design changed from the original two bubbles into a big flat one and the trainer was designated as T7 two sitter version.
The engine of the T-7 was the lower thrust Avon series with 7400lb thrust which was started by a cartridge with the typical black smoke during engine start.
Later some export models as T-66 were equipped with the stronger Avon of 10000 lb.

Yair
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