BAE Systems

The Aircraft of British Aerospace and BAE SYSTEMS 1977 - 2017 95

Hawker Siddeley Aviation (HSA) bid
strongly for the contract as there was a
potentially large order to the magnitude
of 180 aircraft in the offing. HSA won the
contract in October 1971 with its
low-wing P1182 design powered by the
Rolls-Royce/Turbomeca Adour and
received a fixed price contract for 176
aircraft including a prototype. In August
1973 the RAF officially named the new
trainer the ‘Hawk’.

Flight test
The manufacturers were anxious to
exhibit their new aircraft at the
forthcoming Farnborough Air Show so
after its maiden flight, XX154 rapidly
made seven more flights and then flew
on each of the seven show days. The
Hawk was then grounded for the
installation of full test instrumentation
which had been delayed to allow for the

Farnborough appearance. The following

five aircraft of the six-strong development

batch were each tasked with differing

roles in the flight test programme.

The Hawk had some initial faults

which were soon remedied. Test Pilot

Duncan Simpson found himself in a very

difficult situation when stalling at altitude

with the flaps at 50º and the

undercarriage up. The tailplane stalled

and the aircraft descended rapidly - he

only managed to recover by retracting

the flaps. Removal of a length of flap vane

adjusted the downwash over the tailplane

tip and cured the tailplane stall. Good

spinning characteristics are an absolute

necessity for a training aircraft and in a

month-long test programme, specially

instrumented XX158 made 350 spins

finding that in all configurations the Hawk

could recover. The Hawk was also tested

as a weapons training platform. It was

Hawk – 40 years of refinement

†

‡ 88 Hawks were

modified to carry

the Sidewinder

AIM-9L air-to-air

missile in addition

to the 30mm

cannon and became

Hawk T1As. Hawk

T1As of No 151

Squadron (bottom)

and No 63 Squadron

(above). Both the

Hawks have

Sidewinders on the

wing pylons and the

upper aircraft has a

30mm cannon pod.

(BAE Systems)

configured with two inboard wing pylons

and a centre fuselage Aden gun pod for

trials, firings were carried out from ground

level up to 30,000ft and in turns as tight

as 6g. The manufacturer also cleared the

Hawk for Matra rocket firings and release

and jettison of light bombs. The last two

Hawk test aircraft, XX159 and XX160 flew

only initial tests from Dunsfold before

relocating to the A&AEE Boscombe Down

for acceptance trials with the RAF.

The six test aircraft flew over 500 hours

in the test programme and five of these

were refurbished and delivered to the Air

Force. The first aircraft, XX154 remained

with the makers and was then based at

Llanbedr to escort drones and unmanned

aircraft. It is currently at Boscombe Down

with the ETPS for test pilot training. The

eighth Hawk built was company-funded

demonstrator G-HAWK/ZA101 which

made its maiden flight on 17 May 1976