It would make sense to buy more T2s. With only 28 on the books for Valley then there is little reslience for the future if we bend or write some off. However, painting them Red and dedicating them to a 9-ship aerobatic team would seem a little crazy and they would need to be a common pool. Although the Hawk is an old design, the T2 refresh has brought it up to date with a few curious limitations (one of which is the extraordinarily low boarding mass for the T2 bang seats which is roughly 25kgs less than Typhoon, Tornado or Lightning! Even between T1 and T2 there is a 13kg difference (details from AP1269 available on the interrnet)). That said we are still selling - the latest being to Qatar and the Kuwaitis are looking at them as well. Fundamentally a good aircraft.
So if we did buy more T2s - say another 16 - they should probably remain black and we have to turn the Red Arrows clock back 60 years and rename them the Black Arrows. Still it would save money on flying suits! With 100 Sqn/JFACTSU needing to be replaced as well, then putting a bigger fleet of 28 at Leeming would make the ultimate sense with the RAFAT joining them. However, who is going to pay for it? Maybe BAES could part sponsor but the MOD is skint (again) so we would need to cancel/chop another capability to pay for it - crowdfunding anyone?
