- any news on how it is going?

It might take Wart On to take months to fit a smoke-pod to a Hawk, but at their birthplace Dunsfold, it was rather less.

I should know, as my father Stan was in charge of fitting the originals !

I would think smoke pods, not Hawks, are the rarity.

Incidentally, Reds' Hawks have a modified throttle for fine movement adjustments, I've flown in such an aircraft with an ex-Reds pilot, in very close formation with another Hawk.

Later, in my day, we were asked by an African Hawk customer if it would be OK to pipe 'Genklene' - Tricoethanol, now banned - into the jetpipe.

There ensued the fastest international phone calls in history, as this stuff when turned into pretty white smoke is Phosgene gas !

We had another request for green smoke, which led to a static Hawk trying various dyes in the basically diesel smoke pod.

Our best result was met by a seriously ballistic phone call to Dunsfold's airfield manager; it was a calm day and we'd managed to dye this woman's hanging washing bright green !

So success can be measured by various scales...

DZ

Don't think the throttle was modified - was it not the Fuel Control Unit (FCU)?

Also, I believe the reason the smoke mod took so long was that each aircraft is different internally and so the mod needed accurate drawings and bespoke manufacture.

Spoken like a true Northener...

No, XX154 ( the first ) had a few minor differences, otherwise believe it or not the aircaft were built on jigs, to drawings, no Whippets involved...

Fitting any such kit on an aircraft is going to involve some curves etc, but any fitter worth his or her salt could handle that.

You seem to be expecting an Ikea ' Red Arrows installation pack ' !

I did the 2 smoke conversions at Dunsfold in the mid 80's.
Cutting the 3 large holes in frame 34 took a little moral courage because the modified tailcones did not arrive until just before we delivered the a/c.
There were no jigs etc at dunsfold as istr that the original smoke conversions were done at Bitteswell,so it was a case of careful measurement and home made tooling !
Luckily the tailcones lined up very well :ok:
The conversion is relatively straight forward,but as others have alluded to - some of the components are 'long lead' items and do take a while to manufacture.
I was not allowed to attend the engine runs on the 1st a/c,and a large cloud of smoke was followed by a van racing over to me to ask how to switch the smoke 'off' :)
I laughed and said ''doesnt matter - it'll run out in a few seconds'' LOL

Yes i think it was the FCU and possibly also the ECA modded.

As D Zero has already confirmed,the Hawks were jig built and the main production batch had very good ICY,so any hawk post XX162 (8th a/c ?)has good interchangeability (ICY)

Edit actually the component icy on the early Hawks is very good,but there are a few little differences externally.XX154 still has quite a few 'differences' LOL

Yes you do know me A....
I was referring specifically to drilling jigs etc for the smoke conversion,not for hawk manufacture :)

FCU to a different mod standard, ECA standard Hawk item.

Thanks XV...I had thought that perhaps the Reds might have managed to get hold of the mythical modded ECA to eliminate thrust pulsing ?:)
Well it may not be mythical but I cannot remember ever seeing one !!

rgds B

Mythical ECA did exist, but was turned down because of cost. How many ECAs have been replaced, Aircraft come back early because of thrust pulsing over the years?????

I'll take that as a no, then:ugh:

The Lord only knows...its just about coming into that time of year again :rolleyes:

BOAC...we can all learn interesting info on here,I honestly did not know the eca mod had been turned down completely !!doesnt surprise me!!MOD never seemed to want to spend any money on Hawks !
I will not mention hydraulic rig connections :rolleyes:

Reds granted PDA yesterday a week early! They will be able to display at the Cosford Air Show this weekend. Well done team :ok:

To the Team - Bonne chance - have a good season

Unless you have seen this already this link will tell you much.

RAF Red Arrows - Display Pilots

It seems that Mike Ling is still injured and his place is taken by Paul O'Grady in the No 6 slot.

PPP

Hate to think what Paul O'Grady's nickname might be.
Is it Lily?

Thanks all. Well done the lads (and lassies....)

Ramsey Sprint here at TT 2010 wasn't quite the same without the team. There was a contingency of a couple of Gnats, apparently, but the wx was so poor this morning they couldn't get here.

Maybe next year, if I haven't managed to organise a round of Red Bull Air Racing in the bay :ok: