The latest order, placed last week, was with Rolls Royce PLC for the “repair of a Hawk aircraft engine for the SAAF”. The value was R5 million, taking the known global spend on the Hawk to R279 053 752.21.
Part of the 1999 Strategic Defence Package, the first two aircraft were delivered to the SAAF on May 24, 2006 and the last by August 2008. National Treasury that year said the 24 aircraft acquired as Project Winchester had cost R7.2 billion.
With the exception of Hawk SA 250, the flight test and development aircraft, which was built in the United Kingdom, all of its other Hawks were assembled at Denel’s aircraft factory at Johannesburg International Airport in Kempton Park east of Johannesburg. Under a reciprocal industrial participation agreement, Denel for a while became the exclusive manufacturer of tailplanes, airbrakes and flaps for the Hawk programme, with these components already being incorporated onto aircraft operated by or being built for South Africa, India, Bahrain and the UK’s Royal Air Force.
The Hawk Mk120 was selected over the Czech Aero Vodochody L39/59/139, the German/US Dasa/Boeing Ranger 2000, the Italian Aermacchi MB339 and the Russian MAPO MiG-AT and Russo-Italian Aermacchi/Yakovlev YAK130.
The basic design dates to 1968 when the then-Hawker-Siddeley aircraft company was asked to propose a successor to the Folland Gnat. The design, innovative for its time, was named the Hawk in 1973 and flew in 1974. It entered RAF service in 1976.
The Hawk Mk120 LIFT and other “second generation” Hawks (Mks 127 and 128) only have 10% commonality with the original and feature new wings, forward and centre fuselage, fin and tailplane. The new variants are also said to have four times the fatigue life of the original.
Source: Defpro News - April 1, 2011
4/5 Generation Fighters 
