Interesting. Thanks for the info.

I am curious though……what do you mean by the innermost of the two outer underwing pylons? Without 3-inch rocket rails fitted, the Hunter has only four underwing hardpoints total.

Do you just mean the same position that Swiss Hunters carried their AIM-9’s and AGM-65’s from?

Rhodesian Hunters carried the AIM-9B at a point c.a. mid way between where the the Swiss Hunter depicted above carries it’s (250kg?) bomb and the 230 gallon tank. Basically the RhodAF aircraft seem to have had the standard Mod. 228 wing but acquired a third a hard-point located between the two usual ones at some point in their carreers. Keep in mind that the Rhodesian Hunters were heavily modified by the RhodAF so perhaps they recycled one of the 3″ rocket rail attachment points for as a hard-point for light loads? I simply can’t say for sure.

Typical items of ordinance were:

Unfortunately I have to few pictures of these Hunters in ‘combat mode’ to make a definitive list of load combinations. However, the 230 gallon tanks seem to have been always fitted in their usual place and all other ordinance was placed on the outer most two hard-points. When two Golf bombs were carried one was usually retarded. Sometimes only one Golf bomb was carried on one wing and a 1000lb GP bomb on the other. I have no photos of a RhodAF Hunter with both hard-points loaded. I do have a belly shot of two RhodAF Hunters in flight that shows both carrying 230 gallon tanks. However, one of them has AIM-9Bs on the middle pylon and nothing on the outer hard-point the other Hunter carries a 68mm pod on the outermost hard-point and has nothing on the middle hard-point. Both seem to have three pylons under each wing. The Recon pod was always carried under the port wing on the outer pylon and was balanced out by a regular 100 gallon tank on the starboard wing.

Who else besides the Swiss gave their Hunters AIM-9’s?

Hunter operators I have researched that wired it up for heat-seekers:

Other Hunter+Sidewinder operators I have seen mentioned: Chile, the Netherlands, Sweden and Singapore. The Shafrir has also been mentioned in connection with the Hunter but I don’t know if that’s true.

Of course during the latter part of the Hunter’s career, I’m sure these rocket rails had long been gone with rocket pod being the replacement.

Definitely, these rockets (or rail launched weapons of similar vintage) were used by the Rhodesian T.55 Vampires during cross border raids conducted in the late 1970s. By that time they were so far beyond their expiry date that they either didn’t ignite or had such reduced thrust that they endangered Rhodesian ground troops just as much as the enemy. The Rhodesian Hunters switched to rocket pods (mainly of French origin IIRC) because they had hard-points to spare. The only reason the Vamps kept the rocket rails even though they were capable of carrying pods was because they needed their two hard-points for drop tanks to achieve any worth while range.

There are still no Hunters over the Lebanese skies.

However, I finally found this URL in English of snippets from the local press (August 20).

In As-Saffir daily here are two small paragraphs (2nd and last):

Nahr al-Bared: The army is preparing to introduce Hawker Hunter [fighters] in the [military] settlement operation.

The army is rumored to prepare for launching four Hawker Hunter fighters [into the battle].

http://www.nowlebanon.com/NewsArticleDetails.aspx?ID=10433

The last I heard from a retired pilot was that they were still waiting for the ejection seat cartidges (?) to be delivered.

I like the Hunter as much as the next man but it has become a museum piece by now. It’s hard to believe you can still get parts for it. If this is true it can’t be more than a temporary stopgap.

Are there any rumors of new acquisitions? The Hawk/K-8/Aermacchi/L-159 ALCA could all handle this sort of work and the L-159 ALCA should be available at relatively short notice and for a very reasonable price.