Thunder & Lightnings

Hawker Hunter - Survivor XF321

T.7A XF321 - RAF Laarbruch Museum, Laarbruch-Weeze, Germany

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Hunter T.7A XF321 at Bruntingthorpe, 2nd January 2005; Francis Wallace

XF321 was delivered to 33 MU on 27th February 1956 and entered service with 118 Squadron at Jever before being bought back by Hawkers in 1958 for possible resale abroad. However, she was converted to a T.7 and delivered back to the RAF, 56 Squadron at Waterbeach, in 1959. A short stint with the Fleet Air Arm later, she was transferred to RAE Bedford for trials work, which came to an abrupt end when she landed with wheels up at Thurleigh in 1984.

She was declared a write-off and subsequently allocated to the Royal Navy Engineering College (RNEC) at Manadon, she remained there until 1995 when she was moved to Yeovilton for BDRT duties. In 1996 she was sold to CJAC in Exeter to be used as a spares airframe. Once CJAC finished with the airframe, she was moved to Bruntingthorpe in May 2004, where she was reduced to a cockpit section.

The nose was sold to the cockpit collection in Coltishall before it moved to an area in Credition, Devon. She was then sold and moved to the collection in Welshpool where she went undercover alongside many other nose sections, but was soon on the road again, this time to Burton In Kendall, and in 2018, the nose of XF321 was exported to Germany. Today, XF321 is at the RAF Laarbruch Museum in Laarbruch-Weeze.

Information on this page current as of 24/06/2022, last updated by Jake

Find other photos of XF321 on the following sites:

Air-Britain - Airliners.net - Airplane-Pictures.net - flickr.com - WorldAirPics.com - JetPhotos.net - PlanePictures.net