BAE Systems Hawk celebrates 50th anniversary
August 22, 2024
Hawker Siddeley chief test pilot Duncan Simpson took the prototype HS.1182 Hawk aloft for its maiden flight at the company’s Dunsfold Aerodrome on 21 August 1974. The Hawk gained its release to service in November 1976, on time and to budget, and the first two production aircraft were delivered. Since then, more than 1,000 Hawks have been sold to 18 operators around the world, and some 400 of these remain in service.
Hawker Siddeley became a founding component of the nationalised British Aerospace (BAe) in 1977, and BAe in turn became BAE Systems in 1999.
Simpson died in 2017, at the age of 89, while the Hawk prototype was retired from flying duties with the Empire Test Pilots’ School in December 2018. The aircraft was transported to its new home at the Boscombe Down Aviation Collection at Old Sarum Airfield on 21 August 2019 – the 45th Anniversary of its first flight. The aircraft made the journey as an underslung load, carried by an RAF Chinook!
The original RAF standard Hawk was progressively improved in service, with new variants gaining more powerful engines and aerodynamic refinements, improved weapons capabilities and new avionics.
Production at BAE Brough ended in December 2020, and final assembly at Warton came to an end with the delivery of the last of none Hawk 167s for Qatar in September 2022. Production in both India and Saudi Arabia has also ended.
During last month’s Royal International Air Tattoo, a Red Arrows Hawk T.Mk 1, an RAF Hawk T.Mk 2, a Saudi Hawks Hawk Mk.65A, a Finnish Air Force Hawk.Mk 66 and a QEAF Hawk 167 made a special flypast to commemorate the type’s 50th anniversary.
