Jet roar ends a four year silence

The Hawker Hunter announced its readiness for the Tauranga City Airshow today when it roared into life at Tauranga Airport before making a few circuits over the central city.

It was the 1950s era jet fighter’s first flight in about four years and it began with a tow from the Classic Flyers hangar to the refuelling point outside the Tauranga Airport terminal.

See video below of the Hawker Hunter’s start-up and take-off.

There, its tanks were topped up and final checks made before the turbine was run up.

The Hawker Hunter is started with compressed air, which spins the turbine until the fuel can be ignited.

Airplane enthusiasts gathered on a freshly erected grandstand to watch the jet make its take-off run.

Dave, the owner and pilot, said before take-off that he intended flying out over the sea and putting the aircraft through a routine to ensure everything was working properly.

“It would have been nice to get it airborne a bit earlier and do some more flying prior to the airshow,” says Dave.

Dave, flight engineer Jim Lawson, and a team of Classic Flyers volunteers, have been working for months to restore the aircraft to flying condition.

“Jim’s restored it, refurbished it and got it flying,” says Dave.

“He’s just done an amazing job.”

Dave’s Hawker Hunter was built in 1958 and flew with the Singapore Air Force.

The Hawker Hunter is a subsonic British jet aircraft developed in the 1950s.

The single-seat Hunter entered service as a manoeuvrable fighter aircraft and later operated in fighter bomber and reconnaissance roles.

Two-seat variants remained in use for training and secondary roles with the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy until the early 1990s.

The Hunter was also widely exported, serving with 21 other air forces; 50 years after its original introduction it is still in active service, operating with the Lebanese Air Force.

Classic Flyers also has a non-flying two-seater version.

Dave’s Hawker Hunter appeared at the 2006 airshow in Tauranga.

It flew a few times after that, but has remained in the Classic Flyers hangar for the last four years.

Classic Flyers CEO Andrew Gormlie says the decision to fly the aircraft marked the start of an expensive and uncertain process, but it has worked out well.

“We are now telling people the Hawker Hunter will be operational at the airshow.”

Restoring the Hawker Hunter has been the work of volunteers and a few specialist ex-servicemen who worked on the aircraft when they were more widely operational.

“It’s a very specialised item that they deal with,” says Andrew.

“The guys that work on that also work on the one in Australia and further afield.

“That crew, plus the owner and pilot, have been coming backwards and forwards from Ardmore for the last couple of months fairly intensively.”