Gnat vs. Hawk Flight Characteristics
 

I flew Gnats in the 60s and Hawks in the 80s. The performance of the Hawk was inferior to that of the Gnat. Additionally, the Hawk handing was much more benign than the Gnat. Rate of roll of a Gnat was 480 deg/sec.

Probably down to the fact that Gnat was a fighter adapted to a trainer. Hawk was a purpose designed trainer

I believe that the original RAF test pilot report of the Hawk was less than complementary. He was quietly shuffled off to CFS.

The Gnat had true swept wing handling, a very responsive engine, an excellent offset TACAN system, was easily supersonic in a dive and had a superb compass system. You also felt that you were part of the little jet when you strapped into the simple, reliable Folland seat.

The Hawk had none of the above. Yes, it was much easier to fly, known as the JP6 by some, had much better range and had simpler systems. I can well believe, beardy, that it received a less-than-complimentary assessment from an RAF TP! I also recall reading in some Learning Command crash comic "The deficiencies of the Hawk compass system were well-known before the aircraft entered service".... So why was it allowed to enter service then? I only flew the 'orange button' pre-AHARS Hawk and the compass system was utterly dire. The Hawk had a better radio fit, with both UHF and VHF, whereas the Gnat was single UHF-only, with a 243.0/243.8 standby radio. The Hawk also had a full-frequency ILS system (but no VOR), whereas the Gnat had a 12(?) channel crystal system which could only be reached by someone with the dexterity of James Herriot sticking his hand up a cow's arse.

The worst aspect of the Gnat was its twitchiness in close formation - which was a bugger. Whereas despite its sluggish engine response, formation in the Hawk was dead easy. I once left 1 notch of flap down (by mistake) when flying the Gnat in close formation and it was vastly easier to fly - interesting that the Reds usually flew it that way!

At TWU, the Hawks I flew didn't have the dorsal fin extension, so weren't terribly yaw stable for strafe. Astonishingly, they also lacked a gun sight as good as the ones we had in the Hunter a few years earlier. But they did have a much better camera - no juggling with cine mags unlike in the Hunter.

The Gnat's longitudinal control system was very complicated and failure procedures had to be immediate and correct; AC/DC failure was also quite complicated to resolve. STUPRECCC and CUBSTUNT probably haunt many an ex-Gnat pilot to this very day! By the time I flew it in 1975, the Gnat had a feel trim position indicator and Mod399 standby TPI changeover switches, which made the hydraulic failure procedure much simpler and safer.

But my favourite red-and-white trainer? The lovely Hunter GT6 - and not just because it didn't have a seat for a QFI. Quite viceless and it went like stink!

That said, one of my favourite Hawk trips ever was a 2-ship tactical formation exercise at low level in Devon, led by sharpend - quite brilliant fun!

Fonsini,

I think Beagle above has given a pretty comprehensive and accurate answer . I have 100+ hours on the Gnat mainly as a student in the 60's and 800+ hours on the Hawk mainly as a TWU instructor.
The Gnat was significantly faster than the Hawk, had ultra-responsive controls including a head banging rate of roll and was more compilcated . It was thus a challenging aircraft to fly and therefore, in my opinion, a better lead-in to later fastjets. The Hawk was less of a challenge and, because of this, the TWU course had to be altered to give students a similar degree of challenge to the Hunter course that it replaced.. Its performance at low-level in the TWU environment was always a problem - a realistic top speed of about 480Kts thanks to the external gun pod and wing hardpoints and sortie lengths of less than an hour. Beagle has detailed the systems and equipment but I would add 2 others. The back seat for we instructors was luxury compared with the contortions necessary in the Gnat. The other is the simplicity of arming the Gnat's ejection seats. No pins to drop just a ball on a stick in the back of your neck that you turned through 90 degrees to arm it.

Which was the better? The Hawk was simpler, more reliable and a quantum leap for the instructot. The most fun? The Gnat by a country mile.

To give an almost diametrically opposed perspective to Nipvas, I have about an hour in a Gnat and two hours in Hawks. After the second Hawk trip I honestly felt that I could have safely taken it around the patch. It was CAVOK and about 15kts of wind straight down a nice long runway, and the Hawk just wasn't that intimidating to fly. I don't mean to claim I could have taken it low-level or anything tricky, just a few circuits.
The Gnat? I think I would've taken a lot longer before even thinking about going solo!

DaveU
I think that you may have misconstrued my post in which I said that the Hawk was less of a challenge to fly than the Gnat which seems to be the point that you are making so not sure where the 'diametrically opposed perspective' resides.

On a separate note for others on this subject, I should have mentioned that the Gnat could be a real handful during crosswind landings - no such problem with the Hawk. As to Beagle's reference to the Hunter GT6 I completely agree - almost as much fun as a Lightning especially the stripped F1A's at Colt. .

.

Sorry Nipva, my bad - perhaps I didn't make myself clear. I deliberately didn't say 'view' but 'perspective'.
My point was I was looking at the two machines from having very little experience of either, whereas you had plenty in both.
And of course having viewed both aircraft from our diametrically opposed perspectives, the conclusions were nevertheless the same!
Out of interest, did students solo the Hawk much quicker than the Gnat? My own very limited experience did suggest this might be the case.

Dave,
Sortie 8 was the first solo on the Gnat at 4FTS Valley. I regret that I don't know on which sortie current Hawk students first solo. My own Hawk convex was at the TWU and took 2 duals before solo but I was already instructing and current on the Hunter. Hopefully someone else can give you the normal solo time for ab initio students at Valley. I would be surprised if it was not muchquicker than the Gnat where the leap from the Jet Provost to the Gnat was quite eye-watering; I am sure that the transition from Tucano to Hawk was much less traumatic.

Thanks Nipva. Yeah, I bet the Gnat was a BIG step up from a JP (have flown a StrikeMaster a couple of times).

Well, there's a thing! Just checked my old logbooks and found that it's 44 years to the day since I flew my first Gnat solo!

March 04 1975 Gnat T1 XR977 Self solo Ex10 0:30 captain and 3 landings. As I recall it was a nice, sunny day - after a pre-solo trip in the morning I was sent off to fly once round Anglesey followed by a couple of touch-and-gos and a full-stop. All went absolutely fine - one of my better 4FTS Gnat trips.

The Tucano was designed to lead the students into the Hawk, but rather convolutedly ended up being more complex. I recall the jump from the JP5 to the Hawk as being quite a step. But after instructing in the Tucano, a return to the Hawk seemed easy-peasy.

One for Beagle
 

Your solo Gnat is comfortably in retirement at RAFM Cosford,

https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/documen...-T-1-XR977.pdf

After 7.15 mins dual with Tony Doyle, first solo in XP539 in 1963. It's been a long time, but the jump from JP to Gnat didn't seem too arduous.
As a precursor to my next tour on the Hunter, it was a delight !

Where did they plan to use the Jaguar as a trainer? Was it planned as a Hunter replacement for TWU or after the Gnat?

Gnat ? Quite simply--" Sports car of the Air " :ok:
( drove down the A5 pass the other day ; that brought back a few memories of recovering back to Valley......)