Hunter vs S'aar - Yom Kippur war 1973
A story which is not well known is that half a year prior to 1973 Yom Kippur war Iraq gave to Egypt a squadron of Hunters. The main role was of ground attack and the Hunter was better than the mig- 17 and SU- 7 as he had better range and could carry
more weapon load than both. Also the Hunter was very good at low level in terms of handling and speed.
The IAF operted one squadron of S'aar planes which were upgraded from the French Super mystere by replacement of the Atar 101G to a non afterburning J52 of the Skyhawk. However the change required adding of alongated part to the rear of the S'aar jet nozzle and from certain angles the Hunter and S'aar looked very simillar. In order to distinguish between the two the S'aar wings were painted with big yellow and black triangles.
I attached images that show the simillarity between them. As both served in the ground attack role no dogfights took place between the Hunter and S'aar. The Mirage IIIc was the main IAF interceptor by then.
|