Hawker Hunter

[Radish]

A Crusader Hunter sounds delightful                  

[dragon]

There is this Real World example...Of course you could give it the BERKUT treatment (FSW with Canards and tailplane). B)  

[jcf]

Radish, did you read this over on the Gripen News thread?:

"In Tony Buttler's book British Secret Projects-Jet Fighter since 1950, there's some three view drawings of the BAe P106 and P112. When I first got my book I did a quick flip through to see what was in it and when I saw these two aircraft I thought it was the Gripen and a derivative. Reading about it though I found that BAe designers were intrumental in the design of the J.39 and used a lot of the design of the P106 and P112 in the J.39.

I thought that this would make a nice project to reverse a Gripen kit back into one of these two so I contacted Tony Buttler and asked if he had some other drawings of these aircraft. He very kindly sent me some three view drawings of both of them.

Some observations I've made of the Gripen has led me to the conclussion that the Gripen (through the P106 & P112) is really an advance development of the Hunter. To prove my point I bought the Revell Hunter and an Airfix Gripen and found that if you lay one fuselage half from one kit over a fuselage half of the other some startling facts come to light. The fuselages are both the same size in length and depth and diameter except the J.39 has a more pointy nose. The way the canopy bulges is almost identical. The fin in relation to the cockpit is in the same place. The fin of the J.39 is almost identical to the Hunter's where the J.39 is squared of at the top but the forward and rear rake of the fin is the same. The undercarriage is almost in the same place on both aircraft. The air intakes work the same way except the J.39 had extended air boxes. The only real difference is in the wings which is why it's an advance development.

Some pause for thought don't you think?

Cheers, Robert"

So change your Hunter into a canard-delta mebbe?

Of course going back to others suggestions...fixed gear like an enlarged Sparowjet.



Cheers, Jon

[Archibald]

A silly question maybe... the Douglas A-4 Skyhawk was drawn in 1953-1954, and, after many, many  iterations is still in service today.

The Hawker Hunter was a bit older (1951), on the other hand it was build as an interceptor.
So my question is as follow... could the Hunter still be in service today, at least in a a ground pounder form ?
We suppose in this ATL  that last Hunters rolled out of the production line in the late 70's, and that the plane still has growth potential at the time (just like the Scooter).
Were are definitively not interested in reheated, supersonic or interceptors variants here, just the good old Mk.6, then mk.9, mk.15, mk 18, Hunter II...

It's up to you guys...  

[Zen]

An engine replacement is possible, perhaps a Spey?

Not much room in the nose for radar, gun ranging only if memory serves. But you might squeeze a IR sensor up there instead.

Sidewinder was fitted by the Swiss.

Wingtip pods either for fuel or ECM, maybe one has a small laser designator?

Swift made a better attack machine.

[The Rat]

Delta wing?    

[Brian da Basher]

Spats?

Brian da Basher

[RotorheadTX]

"Hunchback" fuselage, ala A-4, and a fuselage stretch would seem the obvious mods....

[retro_seventies]

huntsman based equivalent of S-3 viking for RN, RAN, Indian Navy.

two seat naval strike bird, wider bunter nose (think intruder, but flatter), armed with sea eagles, mavericks, or lgb - direct comparison to etendard & super etendard.  

if no twin seater, then single seater could have same avionics fit as jaguar...??

[Captain Canada]

Ya, that's a good one ! I could see some possibilities with this idea !

   

[Jeffry Fontaine]

My own interpretation on this subject would to consider an extended fuselage and perhaps a longer nose section to allow a radome to be fitted for something other than the small gun ranging radar.  The fuselage could be extended a foot or two to accomodate the radar electronics boxes and the nose section could end up with something similar to the Sea Harrier radome.  Hunchback/hump at this point would be for any additional avionics that needed a home under cover.  The remaining spaces would still remain unchanged as far as fuel, guns, ammunition, and engine.  

Replacing the engine with something that will fit in the same spaces that provides more thrust, a turbo-fan would be a real plus and the logical candidate at this point would be something like the RB199 or F404.  

[Scooterman]

Sidewinder was fitted by the Swiss.

Don't forget they also carried AGM-65 Mavs........

[fabe]

Well of course there have to be some more underwing stores, a one piece front canopy (or even F-16 style bubble canopy) and I also like the idea of a FLIR ball integrated in the nose. A hunchback would be cool but probably limit the pilot's view. What about some saddle tanks?

[P1127]

Have a look at some of the Hawker proposals for a 'Super Hunter' - thin swept wing, afterburner, radar nose

But then the last A4 was built in the 80s....

[Archibald]

Wow, some excellent ideas there!    

Good point,  my idea was to  have a Hunter  in same league as the Jaguar, Skyhwak, Harrier GR.3 / GR.5 or Super Etendard...  transonic fighter-bomber, that's the way to go !

I like the mods you imagined! Dorsal spine, Jaguar avionics (this LRTMS thing...)  fatter nose, fuselage stretch...    

About the engine... I think we must keep with Avon.
Aside Singapore Skyhawks, the Scooter still use J-52, SE kept on with Atar 8K...

The Avon had enough growth potential (unreheated Lightning F.6 engine or Canberra PR.9 engine would be perfect!) to cope with the mods we want...

Ok, seems the Swiss Hunter would be a good basis, being the most evolved of their lineage. We can imagine that more Hunters were sold after the Swiss deal, leading to a Hunter II in the early 70's...

Such machine would kill the Jaguar, and even the HF-24 Marut...  the Harrier would be safe thanks to V/STOL, but evolved Hawks (such as the -200) won't see the light of the day...