BAe Hawk T.1A

In the late 1960s the RAF needed one aircraft to replace both the Gnat, its advanced trainer, and the Hunter, on which pilots learned weapons and tactics. Hawker Siddeley at Kingston answered with the HS.1182: a low-wing, tandem-seat jet with a single Rolls-Royce Turbomeca Adour turbofan, the engine of the Jaguar, and the instructor’s seat raised behind the pupil’s so that both had a clear view ahead. In 1971 the RAF ordered 175 off the drawing board, with no prototype, and the first aircraft, XX154, first flew from Dunsfold on 21 August 1974 with Duncan Simpson at the controls.

The Hawk T.1 reached No. 4 Flying Training School at Valley in November 1976, and soon afterwards the Tactical Weapons Units at Brawdy and Chivenor, where students learned air combat and ground attack in it. It was strong, economical and easy to maintain, and handled well enough to make a good display aircraft. In the early 1980s about ninety were modified as T.1As to carry two Sidewinder missiles and a 30 mm gun pod, so that in war the training units could help defend British airfields alongside the Phantoms and Tornados. The Red Arrows changed from the Gnat to the Hawk for the 1980 season and have flown it ever since.

The Hawk became one of the most successful British military aircraft since the war. Developed versions were sold to air forces from Finland to Indonesia, the single-seat Hawk 200 was built as a light fighter, and in the United States the carrier-capable T-45 Goshawk trains US Navy pilots. Some 1,000 have been built, the RAF itself moving on to the much-changed Hawk T.2 from 2009. The training squadrons retired their last T.1s in the early 2020s, but the Red Arrows still fly the T.1A. Eight museums in the gazetteer hold one, most of them former team aircraft.