With the continually and prominently increasing running speed of trains, the importance of aerodynamic loads becomes more and more outstanding. Therefore the hunting behaviour of high-speed railway vehicles may be different from its low-speed counterpart. The hunting stability of a high-speed railway vehicle running on straight track in open air is studied in this paper, considering actions of steady aerodynamic loads due to the airflow in opposite advancing direction of train. The effects of variations of wheel-track normal forces, creep coefficients, gravitational stiffness and angular stiffness caused by aerodynamic loads are taken into account. A mathematical model for hunting stability analysis of a vehicle with 17 degrees of freedom is presented, in which the effects of aerodynamic loads are incorporated. A computer program based on the presented model is written, by which numerical calculations are carried out. Variation relationships between critical hunting speed and primary/secondary suspension parameters are obtained in the presence of steady aerodynamic loads. It is shown that aerodynamic loads do affect the critical hunting speed. In addition, their interactions with several secondary suspension parameters also affect the critical speed. © Civil-Comp Press, 2014.