I was lucky enough to have completed TWU courses on both the Hunter (234 Sqn, RAF Brawdy) and the Hawk (63 Sqn, RAF Chivenor).
Both aircraft had their advantages. The Hunter GGS was great for air-to-air, less so for mud moving. Whereas it was the other way round in the Hawk. The GGSR camera in the Hunter required a lot of work, juggling with film magazines, defog and sighter bursts and the mags had to be changed in flight. Between Brawdy and Worms Head you had to check each mag in the GGSR, then prepare them for your range session. You also had to set the lens speed. Whereas the Hawk had a much better system, which was all looked after by the photo-mechs.
The Hunter was more stable during 10-15° air-to-mud, whereas the Hawk was bunt-unstable until BWoS extended the fin trailing edge fillet.
The Hunter had a fuel system which required considerable system knowledge to comprehend. The Hawk just had a pump and a gauge and worked far better; unlike the Hunter, it also had a gauge which actually worked under G.
The Hunter had a reliable G4F compass, the pre-AHARS Hawks I flew had an abysmal compass system which went tits-up after the first turn of more than 2G.
The Hunter was 'supersonic in a shallow dive'. Or rather in a very steep dive from FL-nosebleed. The Hawk wasn't. Whereas it had a far less fuel thirsty engine than the Hunter with rather more range.
Throttle response in the Hunter was vastly better than that in the Hawk, so formation flying in the Hunter was dead easy.
As for the course itself, the main difference I noticed on the Hawk TWU was in the ACM and A/A phases. 'Free and enaged' had replaced 'stick, search and report' in ACM and in A/A we faffed with a circular towed pattern against the Hunter, rather than a 'straight towed' pattern against Puddy in the Meatbox on the Hunter TWU. We also did level bombing in the Hawk instead of 15° SNEB in the Hunter. SAP phase was just as demanding on both courses though!
Our Hunters (all bar the 2 ex-Valley GT6s with TACAN) had Eureka as the only nav aid, apart from the 9s which also had a coffee grinder ADF (which we only used for music!) and just one radio apart from 243.8 on a standby box. Whereas all Hawks had UHF and VHF radios, plus TACAN - but, unlike the Gnat, no offset box (why????).
The Hunter bang seat was very old and also pretty uncomfortable - whereas the Hawk had a comfy rocket seat.
Fit the Hunter with offset TACAN, a better fuel gauging system, a GGS video recorder and it would be superb.
My favourite of the two? Despite its foibles, it would have to be the Hunter F(GA) Mk 9 - the fighter pilot's first true love! For the Hawk was a trainer used for lead-in fighter training, whereas the Hunter was a proper fighter adapted to the training role. And it made a much better noise!!
Last edited by BEagle; 20th Aug 2012 at 19:22.