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JW411
20th Oct 2009, 15:12
Could one of you trained killers out there who flew the Hunter tell me if the Hunter was equipped with a landing light(s) and, if so, where were they located?

goudie
20th Oct 2009, 15:19
''Wholi........on the double''!

Wholigan's yer man.

lightningmate
20th Oct 2009, 17:12
Hell, you were lucky if the nav lights worked. No sissy landing lights fitted to the Hunter, bad for the Gulf Mates' image :)

lm

BOAC
20th Oct 2009, 17:28
I think all Hunter pilots were terrified of flying at night - woofters all of them.:rolleyes: I remember seeing one near tears at Leuchars during an exercise when the prospect arose. On the Hunter conversion course at Chivenor the students flew (I think it was) only one solo night trip and on that only the wings tanks were filled 'in case we went too far away':)

The a/c was, after all, known as a DFGA - Day Fighter Ground Attack machine.

JW411
20th Oct 2009, 18:31
Thanks for that; I didn't think it had lights but I wanted to check.

Double Zero
20th Oct 2009, 22:46
There's always the point that landing lights are useful in daylight to show up one's position if in a busy circuit or in air - air photography formating.

I never really worked with Hunters, though photographed Dunsfolds' last T8M ( Sea Harrier FRS1 kit test-platform ) XL 602, and checked with my father who had to build the things ( Camm designed aircraft to fly, but not to be built or maintained easily ) - dad confirms he doesn't recall landing lights on any mark.

Seems a mistake - even disregarding my earlier suggestions of making oneself more visible, there's always the chance of getting caught out and having to land at dusk / dark, though I suspect all the help it would give then would be a quick glance at what one was about to run into !

I suppose the exception would be the FRADU jobs, which carried a bloody great light in the slightly blunted off nose - more for spotting than landing.

BOAC
21st Oct 2009, 08:02
getting caught out and having to land at dusk / dark, - neatly avoided by being in the bar two hours before sunset.:)

mystic_meg
21st Oct 2009, 11:08
Shine a light!!
Photos: Hawker Hunter F58 Aircraft Pictures | Airliners.net (http://www.airliners.net/photo/Untitled-(Swiss-Hunter/Hawker-Hunter-F58/0611378/L/)

Rigga
21st Oct 2009, 20:37
During the period when Buccs were grounded (1980) I seem to remember a T-Bird with a Spotlight/Landing Light mounted in the Nosecone.

Not sure of the colour scheme now but it was possibly an ex-A&AEE or ex-Navy kite (Grey with a Red stripe)

Krystal n chips
22nd Oct 2009, 05:49
"( Camm designed aircraft to fly, but not to be built or maintained easily ) "

That would explain the infamous spike in the u/c bay then and those "delighful" waxed bits of cord that were used via rubber grommets to secure the equally "delighful" bag tanks (and their little rubber buttons!) in order to attach them to the wing surface...:hmm:

Never saw any with a landing light however.

bvcu
22nd Oct 2009, 10:54
'Harley' light in nose of navy GA11 and T8 for tracking purposes , but not a 'landing' light. Didnt seem to give any problems to the boys doing night flying though ?

Gainesy
22nd Oct 2009, 17:19
Vaguely recall some export Hunters with a small landing light on the nose leg. Swiss maybe?

JW411
22nd Oct 2009, 18:29
The obvious place to mount a landing light would be on the nose gear assembly but if you look at the geometry of the Hunter, any such light would be obscured by the gear door mounted in front of the nose oleo.

Funnily enough, when I was first asked this question, I did a bit of Googling and came up with a spectacular video of a Swiss Hunter flying "low level" through the Alps and it ended with some footage of said Swiss Hunter coming in to land.

Not a single light was visible.

norwich
22nd Oct 2009, 19:10
Close up look at the nose of the Swiss Hunter at Bruntingthorpe, what are the items each side of the radome ????

Keith.

http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/ii58/keithnewsome/brunt%20apr/250a.jpg

bvcu
22nd Oct 2009, 22:49
Not landing lights ! Something we never used on ours in UK !!

BEagle
23rd Oct 2009, 07:04
Landing lamps are for girls! We didn't even use them on the Jet Provost or Gnat during training.

The single seat Hunter had on off/bright/dim nav light switch and that was all. Nicknamed the off/dim/very dim switch - if you wanted to flash the nav lights, you did it manually; there wasn't even an anti-coll light, although I think a later mod. introduced one. Taxying around a dimly lit RAF Brawdy at night was challenging, to say the least. And several runways had nothing more than a red T for the approach lighting.

Navaids? Rebecca-Eureka DME only, although some also had a coffee-grinder ADF. Approaches were SRA or GCA if the weather wasn't good enough for radar to visual.

Most difficult part after landing was trying to spot the glim lamps marking the runway exit.

Kids of today.....:p

diginagain
23rd Oct 2009, 08:46
The Mk58 in Swiss Air Force service was fitted with Radar Warning Receivers, the bases of which are what you're asking about.

wiggy
23rd Oct 2009, 08:57
Well I thought they were the indicators but thanks for stopping me making of fool of myself diggin.......:ok:

Lightning Mate
23rd Oct 2009, 09:18
As lightningmate said..

"No sissy landing lights fitted to the Hunter." None of us ever had a problem with that.

mystic_meg
23rd Oct 2009, 09:41
Ahem!! "I say again"
Photos: Hawker Hunter F58 Aircraft Pictures | Airliners.net (http://www.airliners.net/photo/Untitled-(Swiss-Hunter/Hawker-Hunter-F58/0611378/L/)

srobarts
23rd Oct 2009, 12:38
Where?
I see no light.
Photos: Hawker Hunter F58 Aircraft Pictures | Airliners.net (http://www.airliners.net/photo/Hawker-Hunter-F58/1571584/L/&sid=2d9d35055571ae218680fc33f1c91d46)

mystic_meg
23rd Oct 2009, 12:48
Where?

Here!
Photos: Hawker Hunter F58 Aircraft Pictures | Airliners.net (http://www.airliners.net/photo/Swiss-Hunter-Team/Hawker-Hunter-F58/1162426/L/)

It even works in the air too!
Photos: Hawker Hunter F58 Aircraft Pictures | Airliners.net (http://www.airliners.net/photo/Untitled-(Swiss-Hunter/Hawker-Hunter-F58/0742031/L/)

Heck, it even has a brake 'chute!
Photos: Hawker Hunter F58 Aircraft Pictures | Airliners.net (http://www.airliners.net/photo/Untitled-(Swiss-Hunter/Hawker-Hunter-F58/0650117/L/)

JW411
24th Oct 2009, 08:03
mystic meg:

Thank you for bringing those lovely photographs to our attention. I seriously doubt that those lights are landing lights. If they are then they would have been pretty useless for the purpose. They are more likely to be inspection lights of some sort.

What we need now is a definitive answer from someone who flew Hunters in the Swiss Air Force (or susequently).

In any event, my question has been answered since I was really talking about RAF Hunters. I should have been more specific with the title of the thread.

Tiger_mate
31st Oct 2009, 21:55
I believe that ex Royal Navy (FRADU) Hunters inc T birds have a landing light built into the nose radome. Usefull for birdstrike counter measures crossing the coastline en-route to thursday wars.
http://cdn-www.airliners.net/aviation-photos/middle/6/3/5/1493536.jpg