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2017-05-01

Hawk: Proving a dual role capability

With an unrivalled pedigree of delivering the pilots of the future for air forces across the globe, Hawk is a successful and proven military aircraft trainer. Nearly 1,000 aircraft have been ordered, with deliveries being done to 18 countries across the globe. Built on more than 35 years of fast jet training experience, Hawk has been used to train many pilots flying current and new generation combat aircraft today, with more than 3.5 million flying hours achieved.

Hawk is not only the world’s leading military aircraft trainer, it is also a proven light combat aircraft, able to offer close support, reconnaissance, surveillance and air defence and is ready to play an effective role in combat missions at a fraction of the cost of operating front-line aircraft. Developer BAE Systems is continuing to work with customers to create new capabilities and enhance existing ones, ensuring Hawk remains competitive.

Among the advances currently being worked on with customers and partners include the Large Area Display, real and simulated “smart” weapons integration and a Helmet Mounted Display system.

The technology at the heart of Hawk has seen the aircraft enhance customer-training pipelines for the front line fighter pilots of the future.

Students are put at the controls of the latest radar, weapons systems and defensive aids simulation technology, providing a unique ‘brain training’ environment to prepare them for life in the cockpit of new and next generation combat jets like the Typhoon and F-35.

A true advanced jet trainer with remarkable flexibility, it is designed to help deliver a seamless transition from basic training to the front line at a fraction of the through-life cost of its competitors.

Training the pilots of the future

Hawk’s advanced airborne simulation technology has reduced costs and introduced new pilots to frontline sooner, with a higher skill level.

Being able to generate synthetic radars, aircraft and weapons has led to the most important change in the provision of fast-jet training– the ability to set up realistic combat scenarios. Looking at parts of the hawk-training syllabus in more detail reveals exactly how revolutionary the simulation and emulation is in the context of fast-jet training.

During the 1 v 1/basic radar and 2 v 1/advanced radar phases early on B Flight, the software allows hostile aircraft, radars and AMRAAMs/ASRAAMs to be generated which lock onto the student. The threats can be set up to behave exactly as they would for real – the synthetic aircraft threats can be designated as a MiG-29 or Su-27, for example. The student’s radar shows up ‘spots’ and ‘spikes’ on the MFD and HUD when it’s being targeted by radars or missiles – just as it would for real.

The student must respond with synthetic defensive aids (chaff/flares) and missiles. If they don’t respond, or get hit, a message flashes up on the MFD telling them they’ve been killed.

During the operational training manoeuvres phase, synthetic ground radars and surface to-air missile (SAM) batteries lock onto the student, forcing them to use countermeasures.

The interdiction phase allows students to ‘drop’ simulated Paveway IV laser-guided bombs and practise time sensitive targeting. The 2 v1 evasion/operational phase forces students to self-defend using evasive manoeuvres, electronic warfare techniques and countermeasures.

The end of the course is a self-escort to a target against a radar and missile equipped aircraft, undertaking an attack using smart weapons amid radar and SAM threats and fighting out again against more aircraft. Quite simply, this is a world away from the T1. This is the value of the new Hawk. Students are receiving realistic combat training – they are threatened and must act to survive. To all intents and purposes, they are not flying a Hawk but doing it for real in a Typhoon or Tornado. At RAF Valley in Wales, students are no longer simply learning the basics of air combat and weaponeering but frontline procedures and tactics too.

Hawk now & in the future - A dual role capability

The fast-jet pilot of today flying an aircraft with an advanced cockpit is a manager of systems, expected to comfortably handle and interact with large amounts of information about his or her aircraft, mission and wider battlespace. Countries have realised they need to update their fast-jet training to prepare their pilots more effectively for these demands.

The UK was no different. With the wide gap between the analogue cockpits of the 30-year-old Hawk T1s used for fast-jet training and the sophistication of the Typhoon, Tornado GR4 and now-retired Harrier, the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) recognised it had to act. Although the T1, with its sports-car handling and sparkling performance, was still giving sterling service, it was far removed from the technologies pilots encountered when leaving on postings to the Typhoon, Tornado and Harrier Operational Conversion Units (OCUs).

In response, the MoD in July 2003 selected the BAE Systems Hawk Mk128 AJT (Advanced Jet Trainer), with its modern glass cockpit, as its preferred successor to the T1. A design and development contract followed in December 2004 before BAE Systems was awarded a contract in October 2006 to supply 28 Hawk AJTs – to be designated in service as the Hawk T2.

The Hawk has been significantly developed over the past 20 years with the Hawk 100 and 200 series variants and the “constant evolution” with the progressive developments of Hawk Mk127s for the Royal Australian Air Force, Hawk Mk120s for the South African Air Force and Hawk Mk129s for the Bahrain Defence Forces. Hawk’s cockpit is designed to look, feel and function like the latest generation of front-line combat aircraft.

There are not many visual differences between the T1 and T2 – a longer nose, wingtip rails and a re-shaped tail.

However, make no mistake: this is a completely new jet. The canopy and the airbrake are the only shared component between the T1 and T2, but even those components have undergone material change.

The really critical differences between the T1 and T2 are under the skin. The contrast between the cockpits in each aircraft is stark. The T1’s dials and gauges are a thing of the past. The T2 has an all-digital glass cockpit featuring three full-colour multi-function displays (MFDs) and head-up display (HUD). The aircraft has Hands-On Throttle And Stick (HOTAS) cockpit controls with a non-fly-by-wire flight control system to give the student a real feel of fast jet handling.

MFDs, HUD and HOTAS were first developed for the Hawk in the 1990s on the 100/200 series variants for overseas customers. The Hawk’s continual evolution influenced the T2’s development. The MFDs present a full range of information including communications, navigation and a digital moving map, with key information also presented on the HUD.

The HOTAS provides intuitive controls on the throttle and stick for pilots to manage their avionics. Other innovations include a ground proximity warning system (GPWS), inertial GPS navigation and, in a first for an advanced jet trainer, a traffic collision and avoidance system (TCAS).

The aircraft features a 1553MB data link, which generates synthetic, or simulated, threats in the form of hostile radars, aircraft and weapons and allows a pilot to respond to those threats by ‘releasing’ its own synthetic defensive aids and missiles (the T2 doesn’t carry live weapons, though the aircraft is wired to do so). The information about radar, weapons and defensive aids is displayed on the HUD and MFD pages, which the pilot can manage with the HOTAS controls.

The RAF from the outset wanted a very sophisticated system. The specific challenges were “the amount of data they had to process” and “making sure the simulated data actually reflected real sensors and equipment and to make it look as realistic as possible”.

The Hawk T2 has brought frontline systems into the fast-jet training world where they simply didn’t exist before. In replicating a frontline cockpit in layout, feel and operation – it is near-identical to that of the Typhoon – the T2 has therefore bridged the gap that’s grown in recent years between the cockpits pilots trained with at the RAF Valley on the T1 and what they found on postings to frontline OCUs.

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