There's a particular breed of wealthy American male who has already owned the Ferrari, already crashed the Porsche, and now needs a new way to remind you he's better than you.
Enter the Hawker Hunter, a British fighter jet from 1951 that a shocking number of private citizens somehow legally own.
The Hunter was the Royal Air Force's Cold War sweetheart, a swept-wing beauty that could hit Mach 0.94 and looked like it was designed by someone who'd actually seen a woman before.
It saw combat, flew for decades, and then got retired the way all good things do—unceremoniously, so someone could sell them to dentists with too much money.
Today, if you've got a spare $300k to $1.5 million and a death wish you've decided to dress up as a hobby, you can buy one.
There's a whole cottage industry of guys in hangars lovingly restoring these things while their wives quietly update their life insurance paperwork.
Here's the thing nobody tells you: a Hunter burns roughly 500 gallons of jet fuel an hour.
Your buddy's boat is a Prius compared to this thing.
And you can't just fill it up at the Shell station on the corner.
You need a fuel truck, a certified mechanic who's probably older than the plane, and a runway long enough to make your HOA president weep.
The insurance situation is, and I cannot stress this enough, hilarious.
The ones that will want you to have thousands of hours in high-performance aircraft, a current medical, and presumably a blood sacrifice.
One Reddit thread on the topic basically concluded that owning a Hunter is "the most expensive way to have a midlife crisis that can also kill you." And yet, people do it.
There's a whole airshow circuit where these jets scream past at 500 knots while grandpas in lawn chairs nod approvingly.
It's the aviation equivalent of a classic car show, except if someone stalls, it's not a dented fender—it's a crater.
The FAA treats these as "experimental exhibition" aircraft, which is a polite way of saying "we've done all we can, good luck." You can't fly them over populated areas at low altitude, you can't carry passengers for hire, and you definitely can't use them for your commute, no matter how cool it would be to buzz the office.
What makes the Hunter so beloved, though, isn't just the danger.
That Rolls-Royce Avon engine has a shriek that hits you in the chest before you see the plane.
It's the same energy as a muscle car, just with more war crimes and better engineering.
So if you see one of these things at an airshow this summer, give it a little respect.
Someone paid more for that jet than you'll pay for your house, and they're probably one bad landing away from becoming a cautionary tale on the local news.
Honestly, you have to respect the commitment.
In a world of boring rich guys buying boring yachts, the Hunter owner is at least doing something interesting with his money.
Final Thoughts
But it's a hell of a lot more memorable than a timeshare in Boca.