FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1957
1957 - 0109.PDF
Hunter 52s of the Peruvian Air Force. Camouflage it grey and green, and the flash and roundel colours are red/white/red. HUNTERS IN PERU An Account of Their Assembly and Early Flying ONE of the features of the inauguration ceremony of 14thFighter Group of the Peruvian Air Force was a formationfly-past by three Hawker Hunters. A common occurrence —but with this difference: the aircraft were piloted by Peruvianswho had never flown Hunters in formation before. The incident (runs an account in the Hawker Siddeley Review)was typical of the fast work and initiative of the Peruvian Air Force in bringing their new Hunter 52s into service. With the aid of fiveengineers from Hawker Aircraft, Ltd., under the charge of Mr. L. W. J. Hersey, the Hawker assistant service manager, and arepresentative of Rolls-Royce, Ltd., they assembled sixteen air- craft in the space of 20 weeks. Mr. D. M. S. Simpson, A.F.R.Ae.S.,Hawker test pilot, went to Peru to deal with all flying questions and, incidentally, provided all the information on which thisarticle is based, together with the photographs. This was the first occasion on which Hunters had been shippedoverseas since those delivered to NATO countries were assembled in Britain and flown to their new owners. There were, inevitably,difficulties. The aircraft were new to the Peruvians, and the assembly line was a stretch of tarmac, with an open-frontedhangar to house the stores organization. The crates in which the aircraft had been delivered had to be pressed into service to makebenches and shelves for the stores. The policy followed was to open the cases and leave the broken-down units of the aircraft on the wooden formers in their cases until such time as the team was ready to assemble them in theircorrect sequence. By this method the team-members were able to conserve their limited supply of ground equipment and at thesame time carry on assembling the units. This applied more to the rear fuselage than any other unit. It was possible to assemblethe fin, rudder, tailplane and elevator to the rear fuselage while it was still on the ground and the only time the rear fuselagetrolley was used was when the rear fuselage complete was offered up to its aircraft. Assembly proceeded on the first six in such a way that itwas possible to lay down a production line principle and one or two men, whatever the operation called for, were able to followthrough the same operation on all sixteen aircraft. The Hawker team were gratified to report that no major defectswere encountered on any test flight and the majority of aircraft were passed off on the two flights called for under the test-flightprocedure laid down. But they were even more pleased to know how smoothly Hunters can be assembled under unorthodox con-ditions—provided the people doing it are as energetic and skilful as the Peruvians. The first six Hunters arrived at Callao in the third week ofFebruary 1956 and were taken by road to Limatambo Airport. A second shipment, of four aircraft, arrived at the airport onMarch 21 and 22. Yet by April 15 four of the Hunters were ready for testing and the remaining six were completely assembled andundergoing final inspections. The first flight from Limatambo took place on April 18—watched by the Air Minister and senior officers of the Air Force. It was a critical moment. Limatambo is essentially a civil airportand the loose gravel surface of the runways was hardly ideal for jet aircraft, although the length of 2,000yd (2200 m) was adequate.Both runways were flanked on either side with a flourishing cotton crop, and the undershoot and overshoot areas had their share ofobstructions, including a ten-feet high brick wall at one end. But Details of a Hunter gun-pack being explained to the President of Peru, Gen. Manuel A. Odria, and senior officers of the Peruvian Air Force. through the excellent co-operation of the civil controlling staff,the programme of flying the Hunters proceeded smoothly. Work did not stop with the final flight tests of the aircraft;Peruvian crew had to be trained to fly them. Before training began, six officers of the newly formed 14th Fighter Squadrontranslated the Hunter manuals into Spanish. The final result, produced in just over two weeks, was a beautifully finished flyingmanual, covering not only pilot's notes but instruction on equip- ment and powered flying-controls. Although Mr. Simpson gavelectures to the Peruvian pilots, most of whom spoke English fluently, it was found more satisfactory to run through eachlecture in detail with their commanding officer and let him answer questions in the pilots' own language. On May 22, Peruvian pilots made six flights in Hunters, led bythe Group Commander, Col. Fernando Paraud, who had pre- viously flown a 20-minute sortie in a Hunter at Dunsfold. Heand his colleagues Major Leon Melgar and Captain Thorndike (the squadron commander and senior pilot) very soon completedthe conversion course and later flew each aircraft on an official acceptance check. The only feature of Peru which disappointed the British wasthe weather. From the beginning of May onwards the sun was obscured for most of the time by a cloud layer extending up toabout 3,500 to 4,000ft (1050-1200 m). Owing to the temporary absence of radio compasses in the aircraft, instrument let-downswere made by a method worked out in discussion with the senior Peruvian pilots, and which was in fact safer than it sounds. Flyingabove the clouds the procedure was to set course from one of the Andes foothills known as Cerra Colorado, the top of which was8,000ft (2400 m) above sea level. A standard pattern was then flown and an overhead position at Limatambo was cross-checkedby the relative position of three other known mountain tops and from a portable D/F. radio set, most professionally operated by
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
