Hawker Yugoslav Fury

The Hawker Yugoslav Fury is a twin‑engine, low‑wing jet fighter developed in the early 1970s by the Serbian firm Ikarbus as a licensed derivative of the British Hawker Siddeley Hunter series. Conceived to meet the Yugoslav Air Force’s demand for a domestically produced high‑performance interceptor, the programme began in 1969 and culminated in the first flight of the prototype on 12 June 1973. A total of 84 aircraft were built between 1974 and 1982, serving with the 204th and 251st Fighter Regiments until their retirement in 1998.

Key features include a reinforced aluminum‑alloy airframe, afterburning Rolls‑Royce Adour Mk 5 turbo‑jets delivering 12,500 lbf thrust each, and a digital fly‑by‑wire control system that was pioneering for its class. The Fury’s avionics suite incorporated the Zeta‑1 pulse‑Doppler radar, head‑up display, and compatibility with the R‑73 short‑range air‑to‑air missile as well as a 30 mm ADEN cannon. Its agility and climb rate of 250 m/s made it a formidable interceptor in the Balkan theatre.

The aircraft’s significance lies in proving Ikarbus’s capacity to integrate Western technology with local manufacturing, bolstering Yugoslavia’s aerospace independence and influencing later regional designs such as the Novi‑Jupiter trainer.