Originally, XG194 was one of 383 aircraft built for the RAF as a Mark F.6 Hawker Hunter. She was flown on 6th September 1956 by David Lockspeiser. She was delivered to Number 19 Maintenance unit at RAF St Athan on 3rd October 1956 and from there she went into service with Number 43 Squadron which at the time was based in RAF Leuchars before being transfered to Number 111 Squadron which was eventually based at RAF Wattisham from mid June 1958 after a brief stay at RAF North Luffenham at the beginning of 1958.
It was while she was with Number 111 Squadron that she was flown by Squadron Leader Roger Topp as the lead plane in the Black Arrows display team. Before he hand over command of the squadron to Squadron Leader Peter Latham he requested that the team should attempt to break the current world record for the number of aircraft to complete a loop that was held by Pakistan Air Force who had successfully looped 16 North American F-86 Sabres. He got the permission he needed and seconded another 10 Hunters from 5 other RAF fighter squadrons, presumably flown by the best pilots of the time.
It was at Farnborough, 1958 that the aircraft all came together to to preform the record attempt. First the 12 all-black Hunters of the Black Arrows thundered into the arena and these were joined by 10 other hunters. It was at this point the people watching knew something special was going to happen. In close formation all 22 aircraft pulled up into the sky and completed a full loop, not once but twice before six aircraft peeled away and the remaining preformed a 16 aircraft roll, which is record that has never been beaten. Leading that formation was XG194 with Squadron Leader Roger Topp at the controls.
At the end of 1961 the Black Arrows were disbanded and when the Hunters F.6's of Number 111 Squadron where replaced by F.1A English Electric Lightings in April 1961, XG194 was transfered to RAF Middleton St. George and Number 92 Squadron where she was part of the Blue Diamonds RAF Display Team. In April 1963 the Hunters of Number 92 Squadron where replaced with F.2 English Electric Lightings and it not clear what became of XG194 for a couple of years.
Eventually she selected as one of the 128 F.6's to be converted in to the F.G.A.9 variant. In March 1965 and she was once again operational with Number 1 Squadron in a ground attack role at RAF Waterbeach. There she stayed until the F.G.A.9 Hunters where replaced with the first Hawker Siddeley Harriers to come in to squadron service in 1969. At some point XG194 was transfer RNAS/RAF Brawdy where she would have been used as in an advanced training role with Number 79 Squadron which was based there until she was retired some time in the early 1980's.
Eventually the end came to her flying life, but it wasn't quite her time to go the scrap yard like many Hunters of her time. Instead she was converted, for the last time, into a eastern block fighter and used as an instructional airframe. For a while she was well looked after in this role being kept in a hanger and rolled out when she was needed by the RAF and the Army. Over time she became runway dressing North Luffenham and there she stayed slowly decaying and visible to those that care to look at old RAF bases on Google Maps satellite imagery.
I thought, like many, that XG194 would one day she would end up being either dragged to the edge of the airfield and left to decay or end up as paint ball targets like the two Jet Provosts (XN544 and XP629) which sold to the to Gunsmoke Paintball Park in Suffolk back in 2007. So when I noticed it wasn't on the recent Google Maps satellite imagery I started to wonder about her fate. It was then that I discovered she had been rescued from North Luffenham by Wattisham Station Heritage.
Looking at the pictures of her rescue, XG194, was urgently in need of some love and she got it. She was moved from North Luffenham on 28th November 2009 and the long process of restoring her was started by the team there until finally on 28th April 2012 she was once again reunited with Squadron Leader Roger Top who sat in her cockpit again after he last flew her, over over 53 years ago. Finally completed in October 2012 she was reunited again with its famous Squadron Leader for his 90th Birthday in May 2013. It lovely to know there was a happy ending for XG194 with it being restored and reunited with an old friend.
Finally don't confuse XG194 with WT723 which was an F.4 Hunter which was converted to a GA.11 and delivered to Fleet Air Arm in 1962, with whom she served until 1993. Unlike XG194 she is in flying condition and at one point she was own and flown by Hunter Flying Ltd's in the livery of XG194. Since early 2014 WT723 has been repainted in her old 764NAS livery as platform '692' and is once again on the air show circuit.
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