Hunter Flying Again Now

Does anyone know how Craig Penrice is doing now? I remember he was badly injured after ejecting from the Hunter in North Wales and was unable to fly for some time.

Rob

Having read through all those linked reports 2 or more of them had human decisions as a major factor rather than pure aircraft problems,but it is still a high number for a type.

Unfortunately with the Shoreham accident it becomes four aircraft losses . In terms of a percentage of the total numbers that have flown in U.K civil hands it’s a high accident rate.

The US experience is similar, with seven airframe losses (five of them fatal) reported by the NTSB since 2000. A total of around 16 Hunters (almost all of them ex-Swiss examples on government contract work) are still active according to the FAA database.

I have always assumed that whenever the CAA withdraw permit to fly on a aircraft type they have noticed something of concern, either in the design or how the aircraft is operated. Whilst I agree the CAA had to be seen doing something in the eyes of the public and the dog we call the media, I think this was not to appease them.

In this case I am guessing it has been done for civilian Hunters as a precaution and to allow for investigations to see if past incidents and accidents have any baring on the latest accident, clearly aircraft on military contacts are seen differently and that could be for any number of reasons from how they are operated , hours flown, fatigue on airframes Etc, Etc

Yet again it’s not for us to speculate, but I do hope at the end of this we will still see Hunters and other vintage jets operating at UK air displays as well as answers to the tragic events at Shoreham.

Loss rate during military use was quite high. Factors such as number of a/c in service, maintenance, sortie rate, flying tasks and pilot experience would explain most of those

Unfortunately with the Shoreham accident it becomes four aircraft losses . In terms of a percentage of the total numbers that have flown in U.K civil hands it’s a high
accident rate.

www.gov.uk/aaib-reports?keywords=hawker+hunter&date_of_occurrence%5Bfrom%5D=&date_of_occurrence%5Bto%5D=

The above link refers to 9 Hunter incidents, three were a total loss and only two were fatal, none were during a public air display. No comment just the facts.

Maybe the CAA has examined the safety record of the type in civil hands in the U.K carrying out air display type work and decided that the loss rate is disproportionate to the numbers of hours being flown.

I would suggest that the continued operation of Hunters by military operators indicates that the CAA’s response to the Shoreham accident, grounding the type for civil operators, owes more to pandering to the press than to rational and substantive assessments.

The Hunterfest also took place at St Stephan last weekend. http://www.hunterverein.ch/NEWS/NEWS.html

Indeed. They fall under the auspices of the MAA rather than the CAA. The MAA have not deemed it necessary to ground any Hunters, or have any specific inspections undertaken, nor have the FAA in the US (where about 15 are also being operated on contract to the military). Read into that what you will.

The Scampton-based ones were never grounded

Is that because they’re on military serials Mike?

The Scampton-based ones were never grounded