Originally Posted by
Bob Viking
I believe it is a little while since you taught on the Hawk T1 at Chivenor. I’m afraid you do yourself a disservice by imagining that times and requirements haven’t moved on since then.
I taught Tac Weapons on the Hawk T1, T2, 115 and 166. During my 15 years of Hawk instructing I saw many changes. The most obvious of which was a shift from a frontline consisting of Tornados, Jaguars and Harriers to one consisting of Typhoons and F35s. Whilst the T1 system was a good system and pushed out very capable pilots that could still provide value today, it would not be one that would provide the input standard desired of modern OCUs.
I love the Hawk T2 (that combined with the 166 make up the largest slice of my 3000+ Hawk hours) and I rate it very highly as a training platform. Notwithstanding its current serviceability woes, if I had a blank sheet of paper now to design a new trainer it wouldn’t come out looking like a Hawk. It would almost certainly look a lot more like a M346, T50 or Red Hawk and possess all of the advanced handling characteristics associated with such aircraft along with the modern avionics suites (which the Hawk T2 does have but could use a midlife update to incorporate some modern sensor simulation).
BV
I bow to your far more current views. It is totally correct that I last instructed on the Hawk in 1983; an amazing 40 years ago; a lifetime. I also appreciate that the modern RAF is totally different to that era; more is the pity. Of course times have changed. However, do you not agree it is important for the instructor to have a good view out. That is the point I was trying to make. I remember many hours in the back seat of a Chippy; nightmare at night .