Following a lengthy absence, a Hawker Sea Fury is once again flying in Australia, bedecked appropriately in Royal Australian Navy colours. Gavin Conroy and Paul Bennet tell the former air racer’s story
In early 2024, a significant part of naval aviation history returned to the skies of Australia in the form of a British classic, the Hawker Sea Fury. The Australian Defence Force ordered 101 of these characterful aircraft in the late 1940s to be allocated to several different squadrons. Some of these machines would operate from the HMAS Sydney (formerly HMS Terrible), the newly acquired aircraft carrier brought into Australian service in 1948.
A year later, 25 Sea Furies operated by 805 Squadron set sail on Sydney from the UK where the carrier had been built. The remaining 76 Sea Furies were delivered to the Royal Australian Navy in December 1950, October 1951, March 1952, January 1953 and January 1954. It was not long before the Sea Fury began to see combat. In 1951 the decision was made to send two squadrons of aircraft to Korea to support the operations undertaken by the United Nations. Nos 805 and 808 Squadrons set sail for Korea in August 1951 and flew their first operational sorties on October 4 that year.
