The FAST Lady of the Night

51° 16′ 56″ N / 00° 45′ 12″ W

This unique 1955 vintage Hawker Hunter is known as Hecate (the goddess of the night in Greek mythology) since it was the aircraft utilized to trial a pair of HUDs (heads up display, one each for each of the crew) as well as LLTV (low light television) and FLIR (forward looking infrared). Also trialed was the Penetrate pod which was a terrain database that provided visual cues in the HUDs (an earlier version is mounted on the port wing). This Hunter was meant to rule the night by way of all weather, low-level, high speed flying. Amazingly, this airframe accumulated 3,670.3 hours before ultimate retirement and can be seen at FAST (Farnborough Air Sciences Trust)

Hawker Hunter WV383 “Hecate-Lady of the Night” at FAST (Farnborough Air Sciences Trust) in Farnborough UK (the Penetrate pod is white and on the reverse side of the drop tank)—©2017 Joseph May/Slipstream Photography