Advocatus, I think you answered your own question !
I completely agree the soul of the aircraft was removed by bean counters not aircrew; no-one who saw Jim Hawkins display ZG200 will ever forget it - stall turns & tailslides, sustained high speed outside turns with a wingtip say 100' off the deck...
Sadly for one or other cause - it seems the traditional exuberant ( practice ) display reason, but with a couple of other factors thrown in - that ended tragically, while a later display crash sounds plain daft.
I was told, others who were there can confirm or refute this, that on a Middle East sales tour Jim had
ONE round loaded into the pod on G-Hawk, and a 40 gallon oil drum put on a post; he dived & got it with his one shot.
The tale may have grown in the telling, so if someone ( I'll only listen to Dunsfold staff who were there ! ) comes back and says he had full ammo' & it was a football field...having seen his skill, though, and having flown with him ( my stomach has yet to catch up ) I tend to believe the story.
Talking of carrying stores, I did photograph G-Hawk carrying a Sea Eagle too among many things, though the ground clearance on the centreline looked a bit iffy, and presumably it was planned to use a future Hawk / external radar source or just the missile seeker...
Will attach a few H200 prototype shots; haven't found out yet if the aircraft is still being promoted -
I wouldn't be at all surprised if it's been binned in case potential buyers see the price difference re. the Typhoon - that's the sort of logic, and bean-counter, which made me vote with my feet from BAe in the first place, along with the treatment of the Taylor Scott incident...
The first Hawk 200, ZG200, in build.
ZG200 on final engine run ( Rolls Royce engineer Keith Wardle ) on the afternoon before it's first take-off.
Flight Test engineer Steve Potton in the only 'posed' photo's I ever took at Dunsfold ( I never usually had the luxury of planning ) - with the mock-up Hawk 200, Mauser fairings et al.
Steve signed copies as the 'Airfix Project Pilot' though has done plenty of FJ flying in the back seat- but he went to the Dark Side up North, the only one who was so tempted.