Historic example of BAe jet trainer regains further provenance at Brooklands
The Brooklands Museum’s British Aerospace Hawk 100, ZA101/G‑HAWK, was recently reunited with its original wing, which had been repatriated from India where it was fitted to another Hawk employed on ground exhibition duties. When G-HAWK — the eighth example of the type to fly — was presented to the museum by BAE Systems in 2018, it had a Hawk Mk53 wing, installed for ground instructional use with the Academy for Skills and Knowledge at Samlesbury.
Between May 1976 and February 2001, G-HAWK — built as the only Hawk Mk50 — went through many changes during its working life, being retained by Hawker Siddeley/British Aerospace as a demonstrator and flight test aircraft for its entire career. Given the serial ZA101 for weapons tests, it saw service on a multitude of weapons clearance trials for export Hawks. It last flew with the now refitted seven-station wing while in Hawk 100 guise, with four wing pylons, wingtip stations — the first Hawk to be so equipped — and a centreline hardpoint.
The wing arrived at Brooklands still painted in Indian Air Force colours, with a false, plastic leading edge onto which a set of slats could be bolted for static display purposes. After the leading edge had been removed and the filler between that and the original leading edge sanded off, the wing was returned to the configuration in which it last flew, which involved the fitting of two wing fences, six mini-fences and 30 vortex generators.
The Brooklands team received invaluable help from Chris Wilson of North Yorkshire-based Jet Art Aviation, and the Boscombe Down Aviation Collection, in a thoroughly worthwhile task to reinforce the provenance of this important machine.
