With the sad realisation that the 2014 UK Airshow season is finally drawing to a close and the spectacularly memorable visit of the Canadian Warplane Heritage Lancaster is almost over, it is hardly surprising that a significant aviation event has almost slipped under the radar – the British Aerospace Hawk is 40 years old! At a time when the fortunes of the UK Aviation industry are very much in decline, the Hawk has been a resounding success for British Aerospace – not only has the aircraft become the mainstay of RAF fast jet training, but it has also secured extremely healthy export orders for the company. The mount of the world famous RAF Aerobatic Display Team ‘The Red Arrows’, the Hawk remains at the forefront of pilot training, with the new T.2 version entering service around the world. Let’s enjoy a little Hawk indulgence!
Royal Air Force Hawk Trainers
The Hawker Siddeley (British Aerospace) Hawk was developed out of an RAF requirement to replace the diminutive Folland Gnat, which provided the RAF with a subsonic advanced pilot training aircraft throughout the 1960’s and early 70’s. The Hawk first flew in 1974 and entered RAF service just two years later, immediately proving to be an exceptional aircraft. The Hawk was powered by the extremely economical Rolls-Royce Turbomeca Adour engine, which was a dry version (without after-burner) of the engine used in the SEPECAT Jaguar and was a proven, successful and reliable design. The Hawk entered RAF service as both an advanced pilot training and weapons training aircraft and excelled in both roles – in its time, it has also served as an airfield point defence aircraft, high speed radar target and any number of other roles – the Hawk is a seriously versatile aircraft. Indeed, the success of the Hawk is very much as a result of the versatility of the design. Extremely rugged and reliable, the Hawk has been regularly updated and re-invigorated throughout its service life, as the airframe readily accepts upgrades and enhancements which keep it at the forefront of pilot training requirements.
Once a pilot has demonstrated his flying capabilities on the Hawk, he will then be taught how to deliver and manage weapons systems – once again, the Hawk will be his aircraft of choice, which must be both comfortable for the student pilot and much more economical for the Ministry of Defence. As a weapons trainer, the Hawk T.1 would utilise an under fuselage mounted Aden cannon and could be fitted with rocket pods and practice bomb, in underwing pylons to allow the student to perfect his attack skills. For the future air defence pilot, the Hawk was similarly at home with a pair of Sidewinder missiles and in the event of conflict, the Hawk was more than capable of providing short range air defence and airfield protection duties, leaving the Tornado F.3’s (at the time) and Typhoons to do the longer range interceptions. I would imagine that an air defence Hawk would be a capable adversary, particularly at low level, as the aircraft is extremely agile and forgiving – you only have to see a Red Arrows display to see this.
Colourful Hawks
I personally think that one of the most enduring features of the RAF Hawk is the myriad of colour schemes that have been associated with the aircraft over its 40 years of service. Not only do we have the distinctive bright red Hawks of the Red Arrows, but we have grey air defence aircraft, camouflaged weapons training aircraft and an absolute plethora of beautifully finished display and anniversary aircraft. The picture at the head of this weeks feature perfectly illustrates this fact – it is the 2012 display Hawk, which was spotted at the 2012 Leuchars Airshow and looks absolutely resplendent in the Scottish sunshine. On its own, the Hawk is a very attractive aircraft in it’s own right, but some of the magnificent schemes that have been applied to it over the years make Hawk spotting a very rewarding pass-time. I remember a glorious summer spent in my youth, where I travelled up and down the country in search of Hawks – red and white Hawks at Valley, air defence grey Hawks at Chivenor and camouflaged Hawks at Brawdy – those were the days. I also remember seeing a pair of air defence Hawks giving two Tornado F.3 fighters an absolutely torrid time at the RAF Mildenhall Air Fete, as they performed a simulated Combat Air Patrol and interception above the airfield. It was intended to illustrate the capabilities of the Tornado F.3 Air Defence Fighter, which was our premier front line fighter at the time, but all it did was to illustrate how poor the aircraft was in a tight-turning dogfight scenario – the Hawks made them look a little bit silly. What this role play did illustrate was just how effective a point defence fighter the little Hawk was and how we could rely on dozens of additional fighter aircraft, should they ever be called upon.
The Hawk has evolved
The one word that is synonymous with the British Aerospace Hawk is flexibility and this is very much why the Hawk is still going strong today. Many of the Hawk T.1 trainers are still extremely active to this day, with both the RAF and Royal Navy, but the Hawk family of aircraft have been brought right up to date with the service introduction of the highly capable Hawk T.2. This new Hawk is carrying out the same basic tasks as its predecessor, but it is a very different aircraft indeed – with cutting edge avionics and a digital cockpit, this latest Hawk will be in front line service for many years to come. In order to massively reduce pilot training costs, the digital cockpit is customisable and allows the aircraft to be set up to mirror the layout and flight characteristics of the aircraft the student pilot is destined to fly at squadron level. This is a huge improvement over the original T.1 Hawks and will ensure that this much loved aircraft is around for many years to come. Indeed, this latest incarnation of the Hawk will continue the sales success of this aircraft, both at home and abroad and ensure that the Hawk will maintain its global appeal. Importantly, it will also provide British Aerospace factories with much needed work, for the foreseeable future. The handsome BAe Hawk trainer continues to go from strength to strength.
40 Years of BAe Hawks in Die-cast
With an aircraft as famous and high profile as the Hawk, it will come as no surprise that the die-cast aviation collector has been well catered for with examples to beautify our display shelves. Without doubt, the most successful range in our hobby comes in the Corgi Aviation Archive range, with almost every previous release having sold out long ago. Currently, the only example of a Corgi Hawk we have available is AA36010, which was the RAF display aircraft for the 2011 season and adds a welcome splash of colour to the overall black scheme of this No.4 Flying Training School aircraft. As with all the previous Corgi Hawks, this model is almost sold out, with absolutely no chance of securing further supplies. Bringing The Hawk right up to date, Falcon Models have brought us a beautiful representation of the new Hawk T.2, in RAF, overseas and demonstrator liveries – this is by far and away the most successful model produced by this company and continues to sell in large numbers. Perhaps the most impressive models of the BAe Hawk yet produced, are the 1/48th scale beauties from Squadron Wings. At this larger scale, these really are superb models and truly show the lines of the Hawk to magnificent effect – we only have TWO models available of both the black RAF 208 Squadron machine and the grey 151 Squadron example. These really are beautiful models and are a magnificent way to mark the 40th Anniversary of the BAe Hawk. To showcase all our available Hawks in the same place, we have created our new HAWK AT 40 SECTION and by way of a special offer to our Newsletter readers this weekend, we are making All of our remaining British Aerospace Hawk models available POST FREE for UK postal addresses – all other destinations will have a £6.00 reduction on the price of postage, just to keep things fair. The discount will be manually applied at the time of processing and this will be reflected on your sales invoice. For collectors who prefer to use Paypal to pay for their models, we will refund either the full postage cost to your account for a UK order, or discount your postage by £6.00 for all other postage destinations. As we only have two of each Squadron Wings Hawks available, we will again be forced to allocate the models on a ‘first to order’ basis, so please don’t delay with our Weekend Hawk Fest!
Classic models in this week’s Warehouse Offers
I think that we may have awakened something of a die-cast beast with our Warehouse Offers feature. With many collectors already taking advantage of these spectacular offers, we expect our latest trio of models to be just as popular, over the coming few days. Without doubt, the most impressive model in the group is this absolutely magnificent 1/48th scale Vought F4U Corsair from Hobbymaster, which really does show how far our beloved hobby has come. As you will be aware, the Corsair was a brute of a fighter and this magnificent model illustrates this power perfectly and gives you the option of having the wings folded up, for carrier stowage. In the colours of a US Navy VF-84 ‘Wolf Gang’ machine, this model is being offered at less than half price, but they have almost gone already! For the 1/72nd scale aviation collector, we have a small number of Gemini Aces P-51B Mustangs, in the famous colours of George Preddy – the top Mustang ace of the European Theatre. His blue nosed ‘Cripes A Mighty’ has to be one of the most iconic schemes on a WWII fighter and this sell out release is being made available at just £19.99 each. Finally for this week, our Military collectors will be overjoyed with this 1/72nd scale M24 Chaffee Light Tank, which is in British Army colours and is available on the Flying Tigers website for the very first time (we forgot that we had them!). All of these models are available in very small numbers, so please head for our WAREHOUSE OFFERS section and bag yourself a bargain.
