Paul Bonhomme flying Fighter Aviation Engineering's ex Iraqi Air Force Hawker Fury ISS (Iraqi Single Seat), G-CBEL, SR661, at Imperial War Museum, Duxford on 25 August 2023 as it departs for and returns from a display appearance at Clacton Airshow. This is one of the few Sea Fury/Fury's that still retains an original Bristol Centaurus engine and is now the only one in the UK to do so.
This Sea Fury, construction number 37539 was produced by Hawker’s in 1953 as a Fury ISS - Iraqi Single Seat, for the Iraqi Air Force, as part of contract number 53/1/012 for 60 aircraft, and was numbered 315 within this production batch. Although 10 of the single seat aircraft for this contract were actually former Royal Navy FB.10 or FB.11s that were converted, this airframe was built by Hawkers as new, without any of the navalised features of the Sea Fury. Amongst other things both the tail hook and folding wings were deleted.
The aircraft was bought to Orlando, Florida, USA from Iraq in 1979 by Ed Jurist and David Tallichet.
In 1989 it passed to Laws/Coleman Warbird Museum, Coleman, Texas where it was rebuilt to airworthy condition, before flying again in April 1991, registered as N36SF. It was then shipped to the UK in September 1991, passing into the ownership of John Bradshaw at Wroughton until 2009.
During this time the aircraft flew in the markings of a Dutch Navy and latterly Royal Australian Navy aircraft marked as 361 and it was on the UK Civil Register as G-CBEL.
It was then exported to Australia where it was registered as VH-SFW. In June 2016 it was imported back into the UK by its new owners, Anglia Aircraft Restorations Ltd and re-registered again as G-CBEL.
The aircraft has been refurbished and repainted, by Air Leasing Ltd, in the colours of one of Hawker’s Sea Fury prototypes coded SR661, which was a modified Fury Mk.II with a tail hook fitted, but without the folding wings included on subsequent production Sea Fury’s.
The aircraft is powered by a Bristol Centaurus 18 engine as originally fitted to production aircraft. These engines are no longer produced, very few survive and they are increasingly rare, so many Fury II/Sea Fury's are fitted with either the American Wright R-3350 or Pratt & Whitney R-2800 engines instead, as these are more numerous and easier to get hold of with plenty of available spares compared to the Bristol Centaurus.
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