Originally Posted by
Bob Viking
Sorry for the late reply.
I’m sure you will know by now that I’m a big fan of the Hawk as a training jet and it worked brilliantly for everything the RAF had up to and including Typhoon (certainly in its early days). It’s still doing a good job now.
For the future though the Hawk would need such a redesign in terms of manoeuvrability and sensors (simulated or otherwise) that it would effectively become a new aircraft and it would be just as easy to start from scratch.
Remember that the Hawk IS a dead project so this is a moot point but it could do a good job with a significant avionics upgrade and skip the handling side of things.
The idea of an avionics enhancement has been talked about since the early days of the T2 and I can’t imagine it has progressed any further.
Basically, it’s done a great job, continues to do a good job but, if a replacement is being sought (which CAS says is the case) then there are many better options than a fresh design in terms of cost and timeline.
If money weren’t an object I’d love to see a fresh British design. But from what I’ve seen so far I’m afraid I firmly believe the Aeralis isn’t it, as much as I’d love it be.
BV
It’s a Qatari ponzi scheme and they’ve designed a 21 Century response to ASR 397. Low wing? Jeez, that’s an engineer designing a low risk, low performance platform to address as 3rd Gen problem. Avionics? Hardly from the U.K. they’re all French. Mission system and other capabilities in this area? German. Landing Gear? Canadian. Engine? US/Taiwan and subject to the ITAR, good luck getting one in the vaunted 2-years! And when you default to their latest LinkedIn post you know the game is up and the Qatari terrorist supporting and investing bastards are looking to pull the plug.