Home Air Canada’s Lortie Aviation adds ex-Dutch Hawker Hunter to its fleet

Canada’s Lortie Aviation adds ex-Dutch Hawker Hunter to its fleet

N-294 F.6A Hawker Hunter
Photo: DHHF

The Dutch Hawker Hunter Foundation (DHHF) announced last week it sold the former Royal Netherland Air Force Hawker Hunter N-294 after 12 years of operations.

According to the company, the single-seat F.6A to Canada’s Lortie Aviation, where she will join the existing Hunter fleet to provide combat training for the airforces of Canada and the United States.

Lortie operates a unique fleet of special Hawker Hunters, which are modified to replicate many adversary roles for today’s fighters, such as radar interception targets and attack aircraft.

DHHF said it was forced to sell the aircraft due to a sharp decline in the number of both military and civilian airshows in the Netherlands and adjoining countries in the last few years.

“Mostly, this is due to the Covid-pandemic but also ever increasing costs of organizing such events and more restrictive regulations are contributing factors,” the company said in a statement.

For the foreseeable future these trends will not be reversed, and it means that the demand for displays and other airshow appearances of DHHF’s Hunters will be limited.”

DHHF will now return to operating one dual-seat Hunter N-321. The foundation added it is also working on bringing the Hunter Mk.68 N-322 out of Switzerland to
Leeuwarden Air Base this year. N-322 will take the place of N-321 for training and currency flights.