Hawk 128 & 200
F34NZ,
I'll ask around & let you know; when I first said re. the Hawk 128 Aden ' unless Warton have designed it out ' even I hoped I was joking !
But no, common sense remains an extremley un-common commodity, and I'd love to see the REAL costs of designing the simulated gun versus supplying the actual, established item, not to mention the fact that with the real thing it would handle realistically & have a useful war role...
I would have thought there are a lot of 30mm Adens around somewhere, after the retirement of the Sea Harrier & the fiasco of the GR5 25mm ( I photographed that sorry saga at Dunsfold but don't have any pic's now, they may be in some archive unless BAe/Royal Ordnance binned them through emarassment !).
Re. The Hawk 200 the last I heard when with BAe was it would get the Mauser 27mm, presumably because it was in favour with the Whippet Botherers who'd grabbed the Hawk jigs ( being unable to produce an exportable aircraft themselves ).
Now I've recently been told of the single 30mm Aden - will ask around.
It's a huge pity the RAF can't afford the fully fitted Hawk 100 series, let alone the Hawk 200 which would have been very useful - great range / endurance, but last I heard was it can't use AMRAAM due to launch velocity; I did photograph G-Hawk carrying Skyflash ( emphasise carrying not firing, I don't know the requirements for that weapon ).
Striking that the Sea Harrier could eject-release AMRAAMS from the proposed fuselage stations ( acoustic fatigue and weapon cost eventually knobbled the 4 - missile configuration ) but then one can hang just about anything on a Harrier without slowing it much, so I guess the speed margin was enough to rule out the Hawk 200; perhaps a Test Pilot or Flight Tester might comment.
As for the Hawk 200 tooling becoming cutlery, I hesitate to say it but that wouldn't surprise me either, as it's a good aircraft !
I'll investigate all this lot & report back, in case anyone's interested.