The single-seat Hunter was introduced to service in 1954 as a manoeuvrable day interceptor aircraft, quickly succeeding first-generation jet fighters in RAF service such as the Gloster Meteor and the de Havilland Venom. The all-weather/night fighter role was filled by the Gloster Javelin. Successively improved variants of the type were produced, adopting increasingly more capable engine models and expanding its fuel capacity amongst other modifications being implemented. Hunters were also used by two RAF display teams: the "Black Arrows", who on one occasion looped a record-breaking 22 Hunters in formation, and later the "Blue Diamonds", who flew 16 aircraft. The Hunter was also widely exported, serving with a total of 21 overseas air forces.

During the 1960s, following the introduction of the supersonic English Electric Lightning in the interceptor role, the Hunter transitioned to being operated as a fighter-bomber and for aerial reconnaissance missions, using dedicated variants for these purposes. Two-seat variants remained in use for training and secondary roles with the RAF and the Royal Navy until the early 1990s. Sixty years after its original introduction it was still in active service, being operated by the Lebanese Air Force until 2014.

The Hunter saw combat service in a range of conflicts with several operators, including the Suez Crisis, the Aden Emergency, the Sino-Indian War, the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, the Rhodesian Bush War, the Second Congo War, the Six-Day War, the War of Attrition and the Yom Kippur War. Overall, 1,972 Hunters were manufactured by Hawker Aircraft and its successor, Hawker Siddeley, as well as being produced under licence overseas. In British service, the Hunter was replaced in its principal roles by the Lightning, the Hawker Siddeley Harrier and the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II.

 This is the second release of the Hunter in 1/48 by Airfix. Previous to this Lindberg and Academy have produced 1/48 Hunteres. The Lindberg kit is probably nearly 50 years old while the newer Academy kit has its issues including a difficult to attach wing and a cockpit that is undersize. The F.6 version, with the toothed wing was released first and has sold quite well. This is the previous variant without the dog-tooth wing. There was no external difference between the Hunter F.4 and the F.5. The F.4 was powered by a Avon engine that was fraught with issues that were not cleared up satisfactorily until the F.6. The F.5 was powered by the Sapphire which had even more issues than the Avon so the number of F.5s built was rather small; about 100 airframes in total.

Typical of aircraft kits, construction starts in the cockpit. This is well appointed and Airfix provides the option of molded in harness or not. A decal is provided for the main instrument panel. Before the cockpit/gear well assembly is attached, one has to open the holes for the shell casing collectors.

One then goes on to attaching the rest of the nose gear well pieces, the first compressor stage and the intake assemblies. Before closing the fuselage halves, 20 grams has to be installed behind the cockpit to prevent tail sitting. Since Airfix will undoubtedly do an FGA.9, the exhaust section is separate so that is assembled and attached to the rear of the fuselage.

We then get to the wings. The kit supplies the dog-tooth wings so that part will have to be removed from all wing pieces. Then one is to attach the upper wing halves. After building up the main gear wells, the lower sections are to be attached. If you want to have drop tanks, be sure to open the holes for them. Then you can build the new forward wing pieces and install those. Ailerons, flaps and rudder are separate so you can pose those as you wish. The elevators are not and those are then slotted in place. The next three pages of construction all deal with installing the landing gear.

Next the speed brake assembly is built. This can be posed lowered if you wish. The drop tanks and pylons are next, followed by the canopy, which can be open or closed as you wish. This finishes the build. As the F.4/5 was an interceptor, there is no outer wing pylon so no ordnance.

Instructions are very nicely done and typical for Airfix, only provide Humbrol paint numbers during the build. The large decal sheet provides markings for three airplanes. The box art plane is one of the F.5s with 1 Squadron during the Suez crisis of 1956. Another is a nice Belgian  F.4 with 7 squadron in 1956. Finally a Swedish J.34 with 3 Squadron in 1959. This plane has white exercise markings. Full stencils are provided.

I have had this kit since it first came out and for whatever reason, never got around to building it until today. Previous reviews mentioned that the kit was easy to build so we shall see.

For this one, I followed the instructions to the T. I started by assembling all the interior bits and then painting it all matte black using Tamiya XF-1. This was then drybrushed with white to bring out some of the detail. The seat was also painted matte black and then with some Vallejo colors. Vallejo needs something as a primer or it will easily rub off. I then did some work to cut up and install the 20 grams of nose weight the instructions stated that it required. As you can see by the image, there is space, but it takes a bit of planning.

Then all the black and silver areas of the kit such as the fuselage, gear wells, intakes and so on were painted. I used Mr.Color Metallics aluminum and it went on with no issues. It is also fairly shiny and apparently doesn't stick as well as you'd think a lacquer should as those areas that I handled transferred aluminum color to my hands. I used Alclad II for the jet exhaust areas. The intakes were assembled then attached to the fuselage halves. Then the interior was installed and the fuselage halves joined after putting in the first compressor stage. Fit of this is fair and one does have to use something skinny to push through the wing join holes in order to get it in place as the halves are joined.

The kit offers four different tail sections depending on the version you are building. I built up the one designed for this kit and when dry, attached it to the rest of the fuselage. The kit is not filler free as I had to use my usual filler, super glue, on a number of the joins throughout the build. However, I was able to sand to oblivion some of the seams thanks to Airfix' fairly soft plastic.

With the fuselage taken care of, I delt with removing the 'dog tooth' forward wing sections as this variant didn't have them. They were fairly easy to remove with a scriber. Then they were sanded down a bit to remove any plastic 'fuzz'. The upper fuselage/wing section was then attached. Following this, the wheel well bits were glued to the lower wing sections and holes for the inner pylons drilled out.

The lower wing was then attached. Wing to fuselage join required some trimming to get the tabs to fit with liquid glue helping to get the parts in place. Once the wings were in place, the new forward wing pieces were assembled and installed. This process took quite a bit of sanding and test fitting before I got a reasonable fit. Eventually all was in place and I had to do several applications of super glue to take care of the seams.

With that finished, I installed both the nose and main landing gear and struts. The MLG retraction strut was a bit tricky to install, but was eventually glued into place. I also installed the inner main gear doors and the aft nose gear door. Since the underside would be painted silver anyway, I thought that installing these now would simplify the issue. I also attached the speed brake parts with the brake in the lowered position. The windscreen was masked and installed and I also masked the canopy but did not install it, covering the cockpit opening with tape.

I used a Hataka cold war RAF set for this. I painted the underside silver, did some masking then painted the upper surface dark green. A lot more masking was done before the dark sea grey was sprayed. Once dry, the camo masking was removed and a thin coat of clear was sprayed. The tail and nose areas were then painted. I used stainless steel from the Alclad II line to do the tailpipe.

For the markings I considered the nice Suez stripe version, but figured everyone and their dog would choose it so picked the 7 Squadron, Belgian Air Force option. I first applied the two nose decals. These required a fair amount of setting solution. One has to be careful using strong solutions as if it pools, it will melt the decal. I also had some issues getting a few of the smaller ones to stick. The D in the serial number on the right side broke free and folded, a situation I fear is permanent. Fortunately, the font is quite similar to post-war RAF and I was able to replace the affected letter with those from a ModelDecal sheet that I've had since the late 70s.

Generally, this one went together without any real fuss. Probably my biggest issue concerned the decals. They are nicely printed, but in some cases are very thin with little attachment between decals as in the serial numbers and the nose letters. These tore with great frequency and did not seem to like any of the setting solutions I used. Microsol had almost no effect while Mr Mark Softer tended to melt them, and not in a good way. I had no issue finding room for the fairly large amount of weight that was required to keep it from tail sitting. I like that one can build pretty much any Hunter variant with the bits that come in the kit and look forward to giving a later variant a go in a few years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawker_Hunter