The Design and Development of the Hawker Hunter by Tony Buttler

overscan (PaulMM)

overscan (PaulMM)

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Paperback: 168 pages
  • Publisher: The History Press (12 Aug 2014)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0752467468
  • ISBN-13: 978-0752467467
  • Product Dimensions: 21 x 15 x 2.2 cm
 
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Received mine yesterday, and have had a quick flick through.


Very nice book, seems very informative and readable, some lovely photos and drawings.


Only SLIGHT quibble, the paper quality is a bit down and printing of some photos and drawings suffer slightly for it.


However, I would still VERY HEARTILY recommend it.


.
 
Sounds cool.

Many books have been written about the Hawker Hunter, one of the world’s great jet fighters. The majority, however, have tended to concentrate on the aircraft’s extensive service career. Superbly illustrated with both colour and black-and-white photographs of the Hawker Hunter – which has always been one of the most photogenic of all aeroplanes – this new title is the first devoted specifically to the Hunter’s design and development: how and why the aircraft came into being, the troubles it experienced on the way, its flight test programme and what it was like to pilot. Drawing on many original Air Staff and Ministry documents and also the Hawker aircraft day-to-day diaries, it tells the story of one-off modifications and trials projects, aerodynamic modifications and tests with various weapons, along with proposed developments, including supersonic versions.
Click to expand...
 
Pre-ordered. :) I have a particular interest in the transonic/supersonic and guided missile developments, but the subsequent history of the aircraft in foreign service (especially its prolonged service for Switzerland, which IIRC ended up fitting Maverick and AIM-9) points to the entire development process ultimately being a success. :)


(ETA: After many travails, RECEIVED!! Looks good at first blush; shall report back at length in due course.)
 
Another new book on the Hunter that you might like:

http://www.airfilepublications.com/hawker-hunter-in-raf-service.html
 
I finally received a readable version of the book from Amazon at the second attempt (a surprise shower in Qld appeared to cause it to swell to twice its side and become one large papier-mâché mess).


The book contains some lovely photographs of the Hunter during its development and testing, with some detailed close ups of hunters with adaptations like, reverse thrust, P1109a and the Area Rule Hunter. Overall I am very happy with this book, the text is tight, full of information and it has added to my knowledge of this very common aircraft.


One thing to be aware of is perhaps an obvious one, unlike some books the title does represent the contents and the Hunters service time is not covered.
 
I have the book at last...
It's al what the tittle says : design and development of the Hunter.
I seldom read such a good and well illustrated history !
Specially the two seater projects were mostly new to me...
 
Finished!


Short, but excellent.


Possible typo - in the appendix, the F.Mk6 is credited with two Adens instead of four. I know some of the trainers and special variants did lose some of their gun armament, but surely not the primary fighter versions?


I found the P.1109 especially interesting, particularly given the commentary on improved performance by one of the pilots who flew it. It seems like one of the great developmental "might have beens", and one which could have progressed into service if the radar hadn't been such a disappointment. One can picture the P.1109 with the area-rule bulges and possibly an afterburning Avon, but I digress.


The other very clever thing I hadn't heard of before was the concept Firestreak missile module designed to slot into the place of the gun pack (IIRC the Lightning had the opposite; a two-Aden pack which could be fitted in place of the missiles if so desired). Granted, the decision to reject it because it completely robbed any Hunter so fitted of backup gun armament is both understandable and entirely defensible, but it's rather ironic in light of the later decision for the F.3 Lightning to be gunless. Ultimately of course it needed a proper radar to take full advantage of the missiles' performance (which the gunless Lightnings at least did have), and if you're going to put that in, you may as well just build the P.1109. But you have to give them credit for the idea.
 
Does the book cover the trials with the Taildog/SRAAM missile on XG210?
 
Not that I saw - the entirety of the story is linked directly to development of variants for primary Royal Air Force use and the weapons directly associated with them - so, ADEN gun (and all the travails that came with it), Fireflash and Firestreak.
 
I was in two minds about posting this review.

Firstly, let me say this is a very good book. It tells the story of the trials and tribulations of the Hunter's troubled development very well, from impeccable primary sources. There are some cool Hunter developments documented. However, I was disappointed. I wanted more. I wanted a slightly different book.

Specifically, from the title, I expected to read more about the early design process. How the Hunter emerged, the Ministry requirement, its immediate predecessors, the alternative schemes considered. I even wanted to know more about Roy Braybrook's schemes for turning surplus Hunters into various roles including high altitude spyplanes. This is, unfortunately for me, not that book. It would probably have added 50+ pages to the page count and not been commercially viable, but its what I hoped for.

Tony is of course to write whatever book he wants to write, so my disappointment is really due to my own expectations. Much of the story I wanted to read was already covered by Roy Braybrook's Hunter: a personal view of the ultimate Hawker fighter which is still my personal favourite of my various tomes on the Hunter. I was hoping to see what extra information - if any - might have emerged in the 25 years since that book was written.

So, if you want to read a well-written account of the development of the Hunter, buy this book.

If you want to know more about the early phases of the design process, see the various precursors and alternate designs, read about the initial German-inspired layout J V Stansbury drew up and what disparaging comment Joe Smith (Spitfire designer) made to Camm about it, then buy Roy Braybrook's book.

And then buy this one too. You can never own too many Hunter books, or books by Tony Buttler.
 
How accurate is it to describe Joe Smith as Spitfire designer? He may have been responsible for its ultimate evolution, and it could be argued that responsibility for the Griffon Spitfires (especially the 20-series and their Seafire equivalents) is all his, but surely the overall credit rests with Mitchell.


Now what Mitchell would have done with jet-age technology is one of the BIG what-ifs. (I have often wanted to kitbash Spitfire wings onto an Attacker, for example, given their alleged high-Mach superiority, but I suspect the aileron reversal issues at even Attacker speeds would have demanded at least the 20-series wing.)
 
I've just had Tony's book brought to my attention by Alan Drewett, who's website http://glostransporthistory.visit-gloucestershire.co.uk/JetAgermcStories.htm has a set of 1/72 models showing Hawker jet evolution. It was in the context of a continuing search by me (Thanks Paul MM :)) for cockpit and ejection seat information on VP401, the first Hawker jet and progenitor of the Seahawk. I've had a brief opportunity to examine P1052 VX272, the only survivor of the five early prototype Hawker jets, at Cobham Hall, Yeovilton. It has what is probably the only surviving Malcolm (ML) ejection seat. I've already got Barrie Hygate's superb book on experimental jets, and "ML Aviation - A Secret World" by Graham Carter (ISBN: 9780952771562). I'm just tantalisingly short of enough data to model VP401 with certainty.

I've already discovered (Hawker P1035) that you are a serious bunch of historians and I'm hoping that unpublished out there somewhere is a dimensioned drawing of Malcolm seats and some cockpit photos from above of VP401.

Any ideas anyone?

Many thanks
Peter
 

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