No Hawker aircraft has remained operationally viable for as long as the Hunter. UK-based defence contractor HHA — Hawker Hunter Aviation — demonstrates this
Is the elegant Hawker Hunter akin to a grandfather clock? Allow Mat Potulski, managing director of HHA, to explain. “If you wind it up and maintain it”, he says, “it will work” That’s an important attribute in the world of defence contracts, providing support to armed forces and industry, where reliability and sortie success rates are key benchmarks. Not every task requires a so-called fourth or fifth-generation fighter, the likes of a Eurofighter Typhoon or Lockheed Martin F-35, nor even one of today’s breed of ever more capable advanced jet trainers. Indeed, to use such platforms for secondary roles — simulating adversaries, say, or providing targets — could be seen as positively wasteful when there are so few of them and their operating costs are so high. No wonder some of the world’s air arms are turning to contractor support.
This is where aircraft like the Hunter still enter the equation. It was with this in mind that Hawker Hunter Aviation, to give HHA its full name, was founded in 2000. While its work has evolved since then, and it has ac…
