Under sharp questioning in the House of Commons last week, Under Secretary of State for Air George Ward made an admission that shocked Britain. The Royal Air Force's most promising operational jet fighter, the high-firepower, 650-m.p.h. Hawker Hunter, is stalled by an unlooked-for defect: when its four 30-mm. cannons are fired "at certain heights and in certain conditions of flight," its engine flames out.
The unpalatable truth is that the celebrated $1.37 billion-a-year R.A.F. is now depending upon U.S. Sabre jets, plus about 1,500 obsolescent British jets (Gloster Meteors, De Havilland Vampires and Venoms),...
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