Thunder & Lightnings

Hawker Hunter - Survivor 'XL571' (really XL572, ex G-HNTR)

T.7 XL571 - Yorkshire Air Museum, Elvington, North Yorkshire

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Hunter T.7 XL571 at Yorkshire Air Museum, 23rd September 2023; Jake Wallace

Looking very smart at the Yorkshire Air Museum is XL572, a Hunter with an unfortunate past. When in use with 229 OCU in 1959 the aircraft entered an inverted spin. With recovery from this being a tricky proposition, the student pilot ejected but was, sadly killed. However, the instructor pilot managed to regain control and landed safely.

XL572 retired in 1958 for ground instructional training at RAF Cosford with No.2 SoTT, given the serial 8834M. When Cosford had no use for the aircraft, she was disposed of to Air Support Aviation Services based in London. In 1989 she was put on the civil register as G-HNTR, but this was canceled in 1991. She was sold to the Yorkshire Air Museum in early 1995 where she has been on display ever since. When XL572 arrived at Elvington, she was rather faded, so was transported to RAF Linton-on-Ouse in 1999 to be repainted. The airframe arrived back at the museum in the Blue Diamonds scheme, representing XL571.

Today, the aircraft seems to be in good condition overall, although the perspex areas are starting to cloud over due to a lot of direct sunlight, which is very common for aircraft that lack a canopy cover during the summer weather.

Information on this page current as of 25/09/2023, last updated by Jake

Find other photos of XL571 on the following sites:

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