Hawker Hunter?

HAL9000

Was in the Pewsey area on Friday, heard loud noise, looked up, saw fast jet which I think looked like a Hunter. Painted in green and grey camo. No idea if any are still flying in the UK. Could it have been a Hunter? Or something else?

Seymour1

Google Hawker Hunter Aviation Limited. They have a number of them in their operational fleet

SteveRobinson

I think that since the fatal 2015 crash, where they can fly has been restricted?

drofluf

SteveRobinson said:

I think that since the fatal 2015 crash, where they can fly has been restricted?

I think the restrictions are more around display flying and the permitted manoeuvres; e.g. no rolls or loops. 

Cols

^ this.  The cause of the Shoreham crash was pilot error; the pilot attempted a loop from a starting altitude which was too low.  One of the outcomes was a ban on aerobatics by swept wing vintage jet aircraft at air shows.

Funkfingers

HAL9000 said:

heard loud noise, looked up, saw fast jet which I think looked like a Hunter. Painted in green and grey camo.

Seems plausible. Plenty of jet noise, not as much speed as a Phantom or Buccaneer. Swept wings and the tail arrangement give ‘em away.

One of the approach descent flight paths to RAF Brawdy passed directly above my parents’ house. 

strtdv

Cols said:

^ this.  The cause of the Shoreham crash was pilot error; the pilot attempted a loop from a starting altitude which was too low.  One of the outcomes was a ban on aerobatics by swept wing vintage jet aircraft at air shows.

The irony is that performed properly barrel rolls etc doesn't put excessive strain on an airframe. One was famously done in a 707

Headphones

A Hunter did a roll inside a 707?

That would take some sci fi level talent.

drofluf

strtdv said:

Cols said:

^ this.  The cause of the Shoreham crash was pilot error; the pilot attempted a loop from a starting altitude which was too low.  One of the outcomes was a ban on aerobatics by swept wing vintage jet aircraft at air shows.

The irony is that performed properly barrel rolls etc doesn't put excessive strain on an airframe. One was famously done in a 707

The issue isn’t stressing the airframe; the pilot at Shoreham started the the loop from too low and ran out of sky to complete it in. 

Emp_Fab

Talking of strange aircraft...  Last week a US Air force Osprey tiltrotor was circling over my village.

drofluf

Emp_Fab said:

Talking of strange aircraft...  Last week a US Air force Osprey tiltrotor was circling over my village.

They’re coming for you! Obviously the ramifications of “that” post on BCD upset more than just us 

ICBM

drofluf said:

strtdv said:

Cols said:

^ this.  The cause of the Shoreham crash was pilot error; the pilot attempted a loop from a starting altitude which was too low.  One of the outcomes was a ban on aerobatics by swept wing vintage jet aircraft at air shows.

The irony is that performed properly barrel rolls etc doesn't put excessive strain on an airframe. One was famously done in a 707

The issue isn’t stressing the airframe; the pilot at Shoreham started the the loop from too low and ran out of sky to complete it in. 

Exactly that. 100% pilot error - and a travesty that he was cleared on all charges even if it didn’t warrant a manslaughter conviction.

The Hunter is a very safe aircraft and was well within its capabilities - in fact, about another 10 feet of height and he might just have got away with it even though he was far too low. If you watch the film you can see that he’d actually managed to pull out and almost level the aircraft, but unfortunately that caused a high-speed stall right in the worst possible place. The airframe did not fail in any way.

breezytele

Talk of Hawker Hunters will always remind me of my cousin Stefan Karwowski. 

He flew Hunters in the RAF and later, the same aircraft in the Oman North Yemen ‘war’ (one of 6 ex pat pilots) in the early 70s I  think.

when I was about 10, he buzzed my grandparent house on the river Barle in Dulverton. His first approach was following the curve of the valley, at valley top height 

(in my memory at least) which was some entrance... Fantastic noise.

He followed up with a vertical climb whilst spinning , going straight up from where we were waving tea towels and  watching from below.

all that was of course not permitted, but nil trouble ensued for him. He was a bit of a playboy, drove a white E type, He later died in a freak accident during a display in NZ. 

  A memorial service was subsequently held for him at the RAF church, St Clement Danes

Emp_Fab

Please tell me his coffin was dropped into the hole from a 200ft bombing run!

breezytele

Well he certainly did low level flying in Oman, from what I could extract from him as a teenager, during a Christmas break with us. 
(he was genuinely modest about his service record, like most of those type )

He was preparing an article for Flight magazine, which I don’t think he submitted in the end.  Maybe it was too sensitive a topic.  Had a lot of gun camera shots. 

One interesting event was when it looked like the Yemen forces had acquired MIGs. (With Middle East geo political implications etc)
Stefan was tasked with a low level reconnaissance pass to photograph them. They turned out to be fake mock ups and the aerodrome had been set up to ambush any Jet attack
 He felt he was very lucky indeed to have survived that, but he had a couple of the low level photos , showing the mock ups in sufficient detail..  

strtdv

drofluf said:

strtdv said:

Cols said:

^ this.  The cause of the Shoreham crash was pilot error; the pilot attempted a loop from a starting altitude which was too low.  One of the outcomes was a ban on aerobatics by swept wing vintage jet aircraft at air shows.

The irony is that performed properly barrel rolls etc doesn't put excessive strain on an airframe. One was famously done in a 707

The issue isn’t stressing the airframe; the pilot at Shoreham started the the loop from too low and ran out of sky to complete it in. 

That's pilot error, could have happened whatever they were flying. Arbitrarily preventing aircraft of a certain age from performing certain manoeuvres is a waste of time. Improving pilot training isn't.

drofluf

strtdv said:

drofluf said:

strtdv said:

Cols said:

^ this.  The cause of the Shoreham crash was pilot error; the pilot attempted a loop from a starting altitude which was too low.  One of the outcomes was a ban on aerobatics by swept wing vintage jet aircraft at air shows.

The irony is that performed properly barrel rolls etc doesn't put excessive strain on an airframe. One was famously done in a 707

The issue isn’t stressing the airframe; the pilot at Shoreham started the the loop from too low and ran out of sky to complete it in. 

That's pilot error, could have happened whatever they were flying. Arbitrarily preventing aircraft of a certain age from performing certain manoeuvres is a waste of time. Improving pilot training isn't.

Totally agree; the solution was somewhat drastic.

Cols

I think the displays at air shows have changed over the years.  

When I was growing up there were a lot more active military aircraft from multiple airforces as part of the lineup.  These days the professional involvement is basically the Red Arrows, Battle of Britain Memorial Flight and a Typhoon.  

The gaps are increasingly made up from wealthy amateur involvement, for which - being a massive plane nut - I am grateful.  I can see that aircrew training and aircraft maintenance is going to be more variable than that of a military unit though.

For what it’s worth, the pilot who crashed at Shoreham was well-trained and vastly experienced.

HAL9000

Just googled Hawkehunteraviation. Def a Hunter that I saw. HHA appears to have one in black/grey/white very angular camo, and two in grey/green camo so could have been one of their grey/green aircraft.

Nitefly

When I was in primary school in Blackpool in 1957/8 we used to get sonic booms from them all the time, as they were built at Squires Gate.

ICBM

Cols said:

For what it’s worth, the pilot who crashed at Shoreham was well-trained and vastly experienced.

He was, but he still made a basic and yet catastrophic mistake.

The tragedy is that it was only because he came so close to saving the plane that the result was so terrible - if he’d realised he wasn’t quite going to make it and ejected, it would have crashed before it reached the road.

But it was nothing to do with the safety of vintage jet aircraft.

About sixty years ago a friend of my father’s killed himself and a passenger - who could easily have been my dad that day, in which case I wouldn’t be here now - doing the same manoeuver in a small prop plane.