Sure, there is the high-profile case of Rafale and also the relative failure of the Leclerc, but does this warrant such a broad generalisation???!

Exports statistics show that France is the fourth largest arms exporter and, over the past six years, is way ahead of the UK !

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_industry#World.27s_largest_arms_Exporters)

Don’t forget the failure of the BPC Mistral and Tonnere in Australia, now in evaluation in South Africa.

How long do you want to have Hawk in service? Til 2030????

You don’t think that a customer that has to spent the same amount of money want to buy a new aircraft that can be surely developped or upgraded in the future to maintain is value as modern trainer???

Noone is saying that Hawk is a useless trainer. Hawk has been good for RAF and other AF, but the time has gone and the AF require new generation capable to meet the standard and the requirement of modern trainer in the future.

Hawk is arrived. It has no more space for further development.

UAE has in service earlier versions of Hawk and UAE AF pilots know very well the aircraft. They evaluated the new upgraded version and were not satisfied by performance, price, or whatever else is not important.

The fact that is still in service in the RAF or that it meets yet the requirement of RAF is not a warranty. RAF is british and has to meet the requirements of British AErospace (BAE).
If BAE wants to continue to stay in the market of trainer it has to develop a new generation trainer (spending a lot of public £££) and not to pretend to sell a 1970 trainer modernized at similar price of new and more performant trainers.

Hawk has been a good trainer in the past time.
It can retire with honour.

The T-50 is no more ‘modern’ or ‘new generation’ than the Hawk LIFT/100 series, and nor is the Yak-130/M-346.

Neither is any better suited to training pilots for Typhoon/F-35 than the latest generation Hawk.

So the T-50 is supersonic. So what?

So the M-346 has a modern cockpit. So has the Hawk.

You could build a better trainer, of course, but that trainer isn’t the M-346 or the T-50, and Hawk in its latest form is good enough.

M346 is more modern in aerodinamic, avionic, etc. That’s a fact.
It’s enough to see the lines to understand it.
Hawk 120 is a revamping of the Hawk already in service in UAE.

If the Air Force of UAE decided to not continue with Hawk may be it is because they tryied the new update fo Hawk and where not so satisfied or didn’t find many differences with their Hawk in service. Hawk 128 still remaining au update of the Hawk that had maiden flight in 1974.
The last thing is the price. Uk paid 450 milion £ for 28 jets in 2006.
So, it’s not so cheap for a trainer that was born in the 1970.

Hawk has been a good trainer in the past years. To say the best is not correct, cause as I sed if you ask a french pilot if Alphajet is better or an italian pilot if the M339 is the best one, the answers will be the same.

Today it is the time for new generation trainers. That’s the life, sorry.

In its current production guise (LIFT/127/128/129 etc) Hawk is:

Still the best advanced trainer out there, bar none.

Still perfectly capable of providing the kind of cockpit environment that is representrative of current and future frontline platforms.

Capable of downloading current OCU-type training to a cheaper to operate type.

Supersonic capability is irrlevant for an advanced trainer, and the UAE’s decision, while surprising, is hardly Hawk’s death knell.

Ask the Indians, South Africans, Aussies, Canadians and, oh yes, the RAF.

How long does BAE want to have Hawk still in production?

Ask the Indians, South Africans, Aussies, Canadians and, oh yes, the RAF.

Good question. I believe the answer will be the same if I ask about Alphajet to the french or the MB339 to the italians…..

The Hawk is old and also if it had a good succes in the past (particularly thanks to the Uk influence) it could not stop the time elapsing.

New generation trainer are in the frontline (M-346 🙂 , T-50, etc.).
That’s the life.
Sorry, but may be it could be better for RAF too to become to think a new trainer for the new generation fighter EFA and F35, insteed to subsidy BAE.

PS: Mako doesn’t exist excepts in some dreams of EADS. It’s useless to continue to talk about it.