UK signs Hawk 128 contract

[sprucemoose]

A £450 million deal was signed earlier today, adding 26 more aircraft to the two demonstrators already built; by my maths after including the development contract that's about £21.8 million per trainer. They'd better be good at that price!

:hmm:

http://www.flightglobal.com/Articles/2006/10/19/Navigation/177/210044/UK+MoD+signs+%c2%a3450+million+contract+for+BAE+Systems%e2%8 0%99+Hawk+128+advanced+jet.html

[SirToppamHat]

First 13 for RAFAT? ;)

STH

[L1A2 discharged]

Another success then, fast jet trainer with no gun .......:ugh:

Standing by for incoming.

[6Z3]

Dreadful decision back in '03, still a dreadful decision now. The next dreadful decision will come when the shortly-to-be-announced Training Systems Partner (poor soul) tries to blend together a fully integrated 25 year FT system (aka UKMFTS) with all 19 streams accommodating this dreadful decision whilst still complying with the lead service's other, yet-to-be-announced singleseatfastjetpilot 'stipulations'. The end result will of course be a dreadful mismatch for 18 of the 19 aircrew streams complete with their pukey-greygreen undercurrents.

[LFFC]

An interesting development. Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSBOM27087120080101)

Britain's BAE Systems is in talks with Indian aircraft maker Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) to jointly make Hawk advanced jet trainers in India for the global market, the Mint newspaper reported on Tuesday.

State-run HAL currently manufactures the aircraft under license from BAE Systems for the Indian Air Force, Mint said.

The paper reported that HAL chairman Ashok K. Baweja said in an e-mail to it that both firms were doing a feasibility study for the joint venture, which would also focus on doing repair and overhaul of the Hawk aircraft, sold by BAE Systems worldwide.


I had hoped that the new RAF Hawks would at least lead to more work for UK factories! But maybe things won't be that simple.

[backseatjock]

Nothing but speculation and rumour, I am told by a friend 'in the know.' But no secret that HAL will be making Hawks for the Indian Air Force and potentially also Indian Navy too.
I guess there may also be involvement in other BAE programmes through an industrial cooperation package which will no doubt accompany the Indian AF Hawk deal.

RAF Hawks already in production at BAE facility in Brough, East Yorkshire.

[Double Zero]

Unless Wart On have designed it out - nothing would surprise me - the Hawk inc. 100 series, as developed by Kingston / Dunsfold, could happily carry a 30mm Aden on the centreline, which worked jolly well.

I am hardly a supporter of BAe, having left voluntarily as internal politics sickened me, but I can say they price their aircraft relatively honestly including 'product support' - a very significant part of the bill indeed, which at the time - I don't know about now - the Americans never did, quoting bare airframe prices.

As far as guns go, of course the Hawk 200 has 2 x 27mm Mausers carried internally.

http://i234.photobucket.com/albums/ee132/gvtol/G-Hawkwingover-1.jpg?t=1199221552[/IMG]

http://i234.photobucket.com/albums/ee132/gvtol/G-Hawkbombscannon-1.jpg

When the Swiss went for the Hawk, they specified a link collection system had to be designed & fitted; apparently it's fine to fire cannon shells at people, but considered rude to litter their place up with links in the process.

(Yes I do know it was for their test ranges, and in the end they sold them to go back to what they do best - standing around making chocolate while pretending not to be aligned with anyone )...

[Double Zero]

I have been informed privately by a kind and up-to-date Ppruner that the new Hawk 128 only 'simulates' ( ! ) the centreline Aden, and the Hawk 200 now only has 1 internal 30mm Aden!

At Dunsfold we never got as far as weapons trials on the Hawk 200 before the whippet-botherers stole the design to keep themselves afloat, though from what little I know, if one's going to carry an internal gun, make it worthwhile, otherwise stick a gunpod on a pylon when the need arises ( if there's trials data to let you aim it ).

Simulators are great for their job, but as the Hawk 128 in 'virtual' mode is said to portray none of the handling characteristics of carrying the Aden, maybe now I can see why it was discounted early on by the UAE - funny how that didn't happen first time round when they did buy honest aeroplanes...

If this is an example of Wart On marketing,

A, I am not remotely surprised,

B, God help the Typhoon - could be the best thing ever made ( well it's theoretically possible ) but in the hands of this lot...

[harrogate]

"RAF and RN pilots will move seamlessly from the Hawk to Typhoon and globally the Hawk is used to train pilots for front-line aircraft such as F-16, Gripen and Su-30," the company said."

Is there something we haven't been told?

[Razor61]

A new Typhoon Naval Strike Wing :ok:

[mr fish]

no need to worry, all the lovely moneys going to a good cause- the 2012 olympics!!!. so when the last nimrod falls from the sky and the carriers sail with no air group and the pumas run out of life etc etc, we can watch some idiots run round a track and throw poles about, still , we will be left with some nice unfinished stadiums:{

[Navaleye]

Can we expect to see any of these painted red?

[Double Zero]

Is that as in red lead primer, as Warton will probably use wrought iron given half a chance ?

[F34NZ]

Double Zero, is your source quite certain about the Hawk 200's internal cannon ? The Omani 200s don't seem to be so equipped and I was told that none are; apparently the Aden pod is the only option.

Incidentally, is Warton still trying to sell the 200 or is the tooling now being turned into cutlery somewhere near Shanghai ?

[CrazyMonkey]

With regards to cost...for the MOD it is not just a unit cost. Hundreds of millions have been paid up front for Hawk 128 development...all in support of UK Plc.

I can't imagine that that any will be painted red with smoke units fitted. Would be a massive underutilisation of the training systems on board. There are enough cheap Hawk T1 airframes to last many many years of swooping and looping.

Raytheon had quoted an extra million per jet to fit a 'modern' radar whilst retaining all the training functionality of the synthetic one. A shame really that this trainer is unable to fulfil a reasonable aggressor or potential AD role. Lets face it, the 100 Sqn Hawk T1A is not really suitable for modern day front-line training.

[Double Zero]

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.

[advocatusDIABOLI]

DZ,

As a Hawk QWI, I would ask you, just 1 question: Do you train the pilot to 'Fire' the gun system? Or rather, how to properly 'Aim and Fire' it?

I would suggest, the; Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr Bit...... happens after the important bit.

Only a thought,

Advo

[advocatusDIABOLI]

Although, I will admit...... just video-ing the wpns techniques, is no subsitute for the sound, feel, smell and sight of 30mm HEi doing it's thing! or even 3Kg Terror Bombs destroying literally 2 ft of sand! Ahhhh Pembrey......But, The future,

The 'progress' that is the Hawk128, will still train pilots to the high standards the T1a does, but just about every ounce of 'soul' has been extracted by the 'bean counters', (not by the aircrew that have been involved.).

From what I hear, it will make an ideal Typhoon trainer. :hmm:


Happy New Year!


Advo

[Mad (Flt) Scientist]

No internal gun was ever fitted to a production Hawk 200. I don't even think anything ever made it onto the prototypes.

There's still (unless they've mucked about with the internals in the last ten years or so) a bunch of cutouts in various frames where the barrel etc for a single cannon could go (the design got downsized from two to one, IIRC) but the cost of fitting the internal gun (and complexity of AV mounts for all the avionics being shoehorned in around the gun) ended up settling the question in favour of the same 30mm centreline pod that the two-seaters use.

[Double Zero]

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...

http://s234.photobucket.com/albums/ee132/gvtol/th_Hawk200No.jpg

The first Hawk 200, ZG200, in build.

http://s234.photobucket.com/albums/ee132/gvtol/th_Hawk200inpen.jpg

ZG200 on final engine run ( Rolls Royce engineer Keith Wardle ) on the afternoon before it's first take-off.

http://s234.photobucket.com/albums/ee132/gvtol/th_PottonH200.jpg

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.

[Mad (Flt) Scientist]

There was a jot of miscellaneous "junk" hung on the Hawk pylons over the years, a great deal of which was NEVER going to be practical.

Sea Eagle simply didn't fit - as DZ says the ground clearance was negligible, to the extent it was all-but impossible to load the damn thing onto the pylon (since the missile has to have clearance with the pylon in order to get under the pylon on some kind of loading mechanism). I believe one genius suggested loading it while the A/C was on jacks.

In addition, Sea Eagle has/had a minimum speed for release, to give the engine a chance to light up. I don't think Hawk could achieve that speed in level flight with it attached.

Skyflash was another "everything BAE must carry BAE weapons" marketing idea, and just as insane. Speed was just one of the issues.

But the stupidest stores option ever presented for a Hawk was a Kingston/Dunsfold special: In 1983, some clever person decided that carrying Stingray - yes, an anti-submarine torpedo - on the OB pylon was a good idea, and trial fits were carried out. There's a picture of it in the old Ian Allan/Arthur Reed book on the aircraft which never failed to amuse.

We were convinced that there was an Airfix model of the aircraft somewhere in marketing, and one of those boxes of random spare weapons, and every so often someone would glue a randomly selected weapon on their model, and decide it was a good idea.

[Double Zero]

Thanks for confirming what I'd always suspected - we at Dunsfold regarded some at Kingston as prats long before Wart On moved in !

I have to admit I am responsible for the photo's of the Hawk carrying Stingray torpedo's, - even then I was asking myself and flight test engineers " What the hell's this to do with ? " but got no sensible answers, so concluded it was either a secret project or more likely as you say BAe B.S...

While ' loading missiles with the aircraft on jacks ' is mentioned, well I'm not saying for a minute the Hawk / Sea Eagle was a good idea ( except I suppose as a last resort in war ) but the Harrier 2 GR5 had to be jacked up to replace the Sidewinder nitrogen bottles on the special UK fit pylons, as they had the outrigger u/c legs right behind.

I would still suggest to the U.S. Marines they're worth having though ! - especially as -

Since sorted by using very handy other types of launcher rails, I once photographed a mock-up Harrier 2+ with these & 6 AMRAAMS which seemed impressive to me - might need an airfield rather than carrier to 'bring back' though.

[L Peacock]

Double Zero

Though some BAe wart on bashing is fair game, I don't believe they ever took design authority for Hawk. I think that sits at Brough.

[Mad (Flt) Scientist]

That is true, but DZ is a Dunsfoldite I believe, and FT did go to Lancashire...

[GreenKnight121]

advocatusDIADOLI, the "brrrrrr bit" is what tells you whether you actually got the "learn" bit right, or are just good at faking it.

[BEagle]

Surely even 't Bungling Baron's folk in clog-and-whippet land aren't stupid enough to provide a TWU jet without at least the 'dog's dick' gun pod.....

Or were the MoD too stupid to specify such a requirement?

Otherwise, why not scrap everything and anything 'real' - and just piss about with Microsoft Flight Simulator?

Nothing can properly simulate the experience of hot strafe on the range - the first exposure a baby Bloggs gets to proper air-to-sand weaponeering!

Even in the little Hawk.....:rolleyes:

[Double Zero]

Yes I am a Dunsfoldite as you put it, a result of experience with the whippet botherers ( look what they've done in this instance, I rest my case ) and Beagle you sound like you're hinting at common sense - come on, tell us what you really think !

[LFFC]

BAE confirms it will cut 600 jobs - BBC 3 Apr 08 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7328191.stm)


Defence company BAE has confirmed it will cut almost 600 jobs at its Brough site, near Hull and its Woodford plant near Manchester.

A failure to win new orders is partly behind the move, which will see almost a quarter of the 2,000 staff at Brough lose their jobs.

Engineering posts are most at risk, but staff in support and manufacturing at Brough will also be affected.

Union officials said they would resist compulsory redundancies.

Cuts at Brough were thought likely after BAE lost a big contract to supply 35 Hawk trainer jets to the United Arab Emirates

How very sad.

However, a Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSBOM27087120080101) report back in January looked ominous. See post 5 (http://www.pprune.org/forums/showpost.php?p=3806672&postcount=5) in this thread.

[Double Hush]

No surprises here then. The Hawk airframe has realistically come to the end of its life; there are much better airframes now available on the market. BAE's only hope is that the software they're designing for the 128 is good enough to lure a final small order or two. The big problem is that the Hawk airframe is not optimised for the current generation of agile fighters. Also, the development of the airframe from the original T Mk1 to the 128 has resulted in too many technical and aerodynamic compromises.

[Ogre]

Until recently I was a "Brough-ite", and cutting 600 jobs from the site is a lot. Pretty soon the site will become unsustainable, so the question is what will happen then?

[False Capture]

Cuts at Brough were thought likely after BAE lost a big contract to supply 35 Hawk trainer jets to the United Arab Emirates
The Hawk airframe has realistically come to the end of its life
The Hawk was eliminated from the UAE shopping list because there was no 'cash-back' deal for UAE princes.

[Flyingblind]

Perhaps (if true) the chaps doing the deal were rather hesitant to offer 'gifts' to the buyers after the Saudi Typhoon affair?

Still, a shame for all involved, what was the competition?

[airsound]

Hawk was dropped from the UAE advanced trainer competition on 30 October 2007.

At the time of the Dubai Air Show in November 2007, the remaining aircraft in the competition were the Aermacchi M-346 twin-jet, which the Italian Air Force will surely buy, and the Korea Aero T/A-50 which has natch been ordered by the Korean Air Force. The international version of the T/A-50 is supported by Lockheed Martin. Both types are supersonic and fly-by-wire, with reconfigurable control systems and instrumentation.

As Korea Aero say in their blurb
many current advanced jet trainers are so old as to be older than the pilots they are training
airsound

[maxburner]

Ogre, it's not Brough-ite. The collective name is Broughian.

I'd argue that only a bean counter could remove 'live' weapons from training. Just the disciplines required to load, handle and fly with live wepaons makes the event worthwhile. The sound, feel and smell of the real things is irreplaceable.

Sadly I suspect the view posted earlier that the Hawk airframe is at the end of its life is pretty accurate. With aircraft like the A/T 50 around the Hawk does look pretty dated. However, the Hawk avionics are good and an excellent stepping stone to modern fighters.