 The Air Force is supposed to provide fixed-wing battlefield air close support for the Army, but the Army has always wanted to have air close support assets of its own, and apparently sees the armed Hunter as a way of skirting around the USAF charter.Hunters served in the US invasion of Iraq in the spring of 2003 and the subsequent occupation of the country.By the summer of 2004, the type had achieved a total of 30,000 flight hours in US Army service, not bad for an aircraft that was formally "canned".