Originally Posted by
SLXOwft
It was referred to as the HS Tercel in a House of Commons adjournment debate on the RAF in April 1973: Mr. McNair-Wilson '...From falcons of a feathery kind I turn to the new RAF aircraft to be called after the falcon's offspring, the Hawker Siddeley 1182 trainer, the Tercel. I have only one question to ask my hon. Friend. When is this aircraft likely to come into service? It is clearly an important trainer aircraft in the RAF training programme and I should like to have an idea of when the RAF will be given it.'...
The same debate has an MP calling for a DHFS style concentration of basic helicopter training and that the TWU and 4 FTS be co-located when they receive the HS 1182.
Perhaps the change was an early example of RAF wokeness - a tercel being a male hawk.
Assumes NBCD State 1 Condition Zulu Alpha ...
Roy Braybrook's history of the Hawk (published in 1984) suggests that the Tercel name was chosen by staff, but their Airships had already started the process of identifying an appropriate name; although there was advice that the RAF's training aircraft were customarily named after seats of learning or had some educational etymology (Harvard, Oxford, Balliol, Tutor, Proctor, Provost, etc, etc), the investigation into possible names concluded that 'Hawk' was appropriate.
This, by the by, fitted with a policy choice of a few years previously which was that combat-capable aircraft should be named after birds of prey - this led to the confirmation of Harrier for the P1127, and the F-111K would've been the Merlin GR1. Multinational programmes weren't covered by this short-lived edict (hence Jaguar and Panther/Tornado).