News

November 2009

HHA engineering deployed to Brazil for the first time, having been tasked to Inspect and Repair as Necessary Embraer’s Hunter T72, used for chase purposes. After four weeks and many late nights ( working) the engineering team returned to RAF Scampton having undertaken a multitude of additional engineering rectification tasks.

October 2009

HHA has completed another detachment to Boscombe Down on behalf of the Empire Test Pilot School. Once again the tasking exhibited 100% serviceability achieving all course objective on time and within Budget

September 2009

HHA is pleased to announce the appointment of Commander Simon Hargreaves, OBE, as Operations Director. His wealth of both operational and test piloting experience together with extensive commercial knowledge further enhances HHA’s capability in the sector.

July 2009

HHA Work Experience Programme. HHA has now committed to taking on one work experience person for a brief period each year. The first to do this was Ben Harris from St Georges College of Technology, Sleaford. Ben deployed to HHA’s facilities at RAF Scampton and RNAS Yeovilton and gained an insight into the complex nature of aircraft operations, engineering, logistics during his two weeks, whilst also participating in various airshows.

Dec 2008

Two and a half years ago HHA had been awarded the contract to meet all the fast jet requirements for the development of the PAAMS Radar System ( Principal Anti Air Missile System) of the new Type 45 class of Royal Navy Destroyers. Achieving a 99% sortie success rate to date, the client recently commented:-

“Issues identified during the development of PAAMS(S) have resulted in the rescheduling of a large number of activities during its ongoing trials programme. The flexibility offered by HHA, and its ability to react to short notice requests has been of significant benefit in the progress made to date.

HHA has proven to be a very professional and reliable source of aerial targets throughout the PAAMS(S) programme fully justifying the choice made 2 years ago over other available competitors.”

May – June 2008 SUCCESSFUL ETPS DETACHMENT

HHA aircraft recently completed another successful Boscombe Down detachment, principally in support of the ETPS. Once again HHA aircraft generated a 100% sortie success rate.

April 2008 HHA’S NON INVASIVE FUEL FLOW MEASURING SYSTEM GAINS APPROVAL

HHA has developed and approved a non invasive ultrasound based secondary fuel flow measuring system for aerial use. The system, which utilizes off the shelf technology and equipment originally designed for use in adverse conditions in the oil industry, had previously not been used in a Fast Jet aerial application. This new application is non aircraft specific and can be configured for any flow rates with a variety of display settings & formats. An extensive Test Flying program has provided information on reliability and accuracy and HHA can design, fit and certify similar installations to most aircraft types.

December 2007

Extensive feature on HHA in Flight Magazine. Follow this web site link to view the article : http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2007/12/17/220327/hawker-hunter-aviations-new-model-air-force.html

Nov 2007

HHA has acquired the former RAF Marham Rolls Royce Avon Engine Test facility and relocated this to its RAF Scampton site, thereby enabling all RR Avon engines to be tested prior to installation.

October 2007 Press Release - HHA completes 500 incident free sorties

HHA has completed in excess of 500 incident free sorties achieving 99% serviceability. In the course of all flight operations, not a single sortie has been lost due to technical unserviceability.

July 2006 Press Release - HHA is awarded UK Ministry of Defence Avp67 Approval

HHA is awarded UK Ministry of Defence Avp67 Approval to operate its aircraft on Ministry of Defence taskings. HHA is the first and only civilian fast jet operator in the UK to have achieved this major accolade, which acts as an endorsement to the high maintenance and operating standards prevalent within the company.

December 2005 Press Release - re: BUCCANEER S2b G-HHAA / XX885

9^th December, 2005 - HHA gains CAA Approval to Operate their Buccaneer Aircraft in the Complex Category on the UK Civil Register

HHA was today granted approval by the Civil Aviation Authority Management Committee to operate their BAe Buccaneer Aircraft (G-HHAA / XX885) on the UK civil register.

This is the culmination of almost five years worth of effort and in excess of 3250 commercially paid man hours of design verification work, excluding all the actual engineering work on the airframe itself! As such it will be the first Complex category aircraft to fly in UK airspace and is a testament to the excellence of the HHA engineering and operational team. Major overhaul work and lifed component replacement on the aircraft will commence shortly, with a first flight currently envisaged for 2006.

For further information, please contact Mat Potulski, MD and CEO of HHA Ltd on 0207 581 9514. www.hunterteam.com

HHA's Buccaneer (G-HHAA / XX885) is shown below with admirers at a recent HHA Open Day at RAF Scampton.

2004 End of Season Update

Now that we have reached the end of the 2004 European airshow season, we thought it would be interesting to give the airshow-orientated enthusiasts a bit of feedback from an operator’s point of view. This news update will confine itself to the public airshow appearances, rather than dwell on the various other aspects of work that HHA has been involved in during 2004.

The bottom line is that the 2004 airshow season went well for HHA with no technical or operational problems whatsoever. Both airshow-designated aircraft gave their best – 100% serviceability and no airshow appearance were missed due to technical or operational problems. In total we have now flown just under 100 sorties with these aircraft and they were seen by approx. 2.5m people, in addition to various TV appearances both here and abroad.

All the airshow participation was fun; otherwise we wouldn’t do it!

From a pure flying point of view, the Goodwood shows were blessed with fine weather and hence an absolute delight. RIAT exemplified professionalism from an organisational standpoint (and there were some fun Gloucestershire pubs to be re-explored) whilst Leuchars brought back many memories of brilliant RAF At Home days.

RIAT 2004 - Old and New meet: Former lead aircraft of the Patrouille Suisse, HHA's J-4021 meets the new team in their 40th Anniversary Year colours. © HHA

Next to these highpoints there has got to be a lowpoint and that’s easy to identify; Baden Baden in Germany.

From a job satisfaction point of view Baden was great – we were the first military ( or ex military) jet to display tactical manoeuvres in that part of Germany since the 1987 Ramstein accident, and to be awarded this accolade by the German CAA counts highly for the professionalism of the HHA team. On the downside were the heat, mosquito’s, incessantly ringing loud church bells and the minor fact that the airshow organiser chose to declare himself bankrupt before paying us!

Pictured above, Chief Pilot BH and Engineer Neil Galloway, relaxing watching other participants after their Baden Baden display. © HHA

Time wise, much management and engineering time, sweat and tears were expended on the relocation of HHA from Hangar 3 to the former BAE Hangars, now rather grandly renamed as the HHA Hangars at RAF Scampton. In total over 250 miles were clocked up by the various tractors, tow trucks, low loaders, fork lift trucks, lorries, cranes, etc etc moving from the old to the new site. Not to mention literally hundreds of man-hours. However, at the time of writing, this has now largely been completed, and we think the new site will serve as well.

Aircrew wise, all our core airshow pilots were revalidated on the Hunter MK58 under the careful tutelage of Chief Pilot Bill Blair Hickman. The airshow team now comprises of Bill as Chief Pilot, Louis McQuade (DCP & Ops Manager), Rolf Meum, Dave Bolsover and Cliff Spink

The engineers have performed miracles expending over 2500 hrs keeping the aircraft serviceable and the office paperwork up to scratch. Without them slaving away late at night on the aircraft and burning the midnight oil completing the all-important paperwork, the whole show would not have been possible.

A big thanks must also go to our colleagues and friends at RAF Scampton. The whole base, extending from the chaps in the tower to everyone within the Red Arrows and Vospers, have been enormously supportive, friendly and encouraging. Hopefully the local population will have enjoyed the variety the HHA Hunters provided carrying out their display practices in between the RAFAT slots.

The airshow flying season is now over and the airshow-designated aircraft are about to start their annual maintenance. Airshow style flying has ceased with the exception of crew currency training.

It just leaves us to say a big thank you to all the airshow audiences, both here and abroad, who supported us so enthusiastically. Many thanks for the kind words and letters / e-mails of encouragement. They really are appreciated so please don’t think they go ignored.

And as a final thing. The world and its dog are asking how a certain Buccaneer aircraft we own is getting on. The answer is very well thank you! Watch this space, but all good things take time.

Looking forward to seeing you in 2005 and remember, if you would like an HHA aircraft to appear at a particular show, tell the organiser!

The HHA Team