Hawker Hunter

[DarrenP]

Looks good Pyro maniac

[Mossie]

With the Hunters short leggedness wouldn't a refueling probe not be a good addition?

Considering how simple it was to add on the probe and drogue refueling equipment I am surprised that the Hunter never underwent such modifications.

The Hunter came about when air refueling was in it's infancy, it kind of dropped out of frontline use when it came into vogue.  The FGA.9 & later marks went about improving their legs the old fashioned way, they just strapped on bigger tanks.  I think if the Hunter had been developed further, it would have got a refuelling probe of some kind.

[norseman]

There actually was a Spey engined hunter being looked at and RR had worked out the kinks of fitting it (a friend of mine is ex RR from back in the day), he thinks it was around the 13,500lb dry thrust area and fit wise it wasn't difficult as the Avon was a big engine. He also says an unofficial study was done about dropping the RB106 engine in to replace the Avon as it was designed to do a straight swap replacement and this gave approx 16,000lb dry thrust in the variant looked at for the Hunter and it also had better economy and was lighter. I vaguely remember this option being re-assessed when tied to the delta wing Hunter project though both that and the RB106 ended up being canned anyway.

[Barry Krell]

The RB106 was supposedly designed to be interchangable with the Avon, according to Tony Buttler.  Wouldn't the intakes need to be enlarged?  Certainly for a Spey.


Hmmn... New back end and P.1083 wings, plus P1109 nose, Firestreaks and a bolt on underwing probe?

[norseman]

yip, enlarged intakes were part of the project though I have never seen a picture of the design.

[Mossie]

That sounds pretty much like the P.1090 that's in the appendices in BSP.  It was more or less a P.1083 with a Gyron, with larger rear end and intakes to suit.  The nose is more pointed than a Hunter with some radar or other equipment apparent in the drawing.  Doesn't quite have the P.1109 nose, but it would be a simple step.

Link & drawings from Secret Projects:
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,5389.0/highlight,hawker+1090.html

P.1090:


P.1091 Delta Hunter for good measure:

[JayBee]

Looks good Pyro maniac

I agree, but where is the finished article Alun?
Your last post in that thread was September 2008

Jim

[pyro-manic]

It's actually finished! Need to glue on some ordnance and take some photos of it...

[kitbasher]

Probably my first whif was my own notion of a tandem T7 before I'd even heard about the real Hawker project (probably 15 or more years ago) and some years before the Maintrack conversion.
Extended the forward fuselage by 3 scale feet (ish) amd used a spare Matchbox Meteror NF14 windscreen and canopy.  Not brilliant, but it made me happy.  The model lasted a couple of years before giving up numerous bits to other projects (the wings to my DH Viper, the canopy to my AW Manta, for example), the spares box and the bin.
Would love to make another - is the Maintrack P1101 c0onversion still around, does anyone know?
EDIT: Oh, meant to add, I have a P1090-inspired idea that hopefully will come to fruition later this year.

[norseman]

Nice diagrams of the 1090/91, most detailed I have seen and the first time I have seen the larger intakes on the Hunter family, I am presuming the Spey model would have been pretty much identical.

[rickshaw]

Was there ever any plans for a twin-engined Hunter?  Say, a couple of J-85 like engines a'la F-5?

[Mossie]

Kind of.  The P.1128 Huntsman biz-jet would have had twin engines.  It used the Hunters wing mated to a new fuselage.  I don't know of a twin engined Hunter fighter project.
Falcon did a build of the P.1128 here: http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,13717.0.html



EDIT, fixed image.

[norseman]

Looks like the nice basis for a special mission aircraft, EW/ECM etc and maybe even high speed patrol/coastguard. Was there ever any plans for this aircraft over and above biz jet use?

[pyro-manic]

It could have perhaps been a nav/observer trainer, in the same role as the RN's Jetstreams?

[norseman]

I have a niggling memory about this aircraft in that the early turbofan version of the Orpheus which was under development was also suggested for this aircraft but I can't remember off the top of my head or what this engine was called again.

If they had been built a re-engine with modern turbofans would have been nice, seems a reasonable amount of space in those bays. I can imagine flight performance would have been a cut above the normal exec jet!