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The similarities between the McDonnell Douglas Goshawk and the British Aerospace Hawk from which it was derived are obvious, although the Goshawk features significant changes to the airframe and cockpit. (McDonnell Douglas)
RAAF Lead-in Fighter – McDonnell Douglas T-45 Goshawk
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RAAF Lead-In Fighter – Part 3
McDonnell Douglas’ T-45 Goshawk is the only American contender for the lead-in fighter project, albeit one with obvious British roots. The T-45 is a navalised and carrier capable development of the British Aerospace Hawk 60 and is one of the rare instances where the US military has ordered a foreign origin aircraft.
The genesis of the Hawk is detailed in the first part of this series, refer p25, Dec 95 AA. The evolution of the Hawk into the Goshawk traces back to the late 1970s to the US Navy’s VTXTS (later T45TS) programme to find a replacement for the TA-4J Skyhawk and T-2 Buckeye used for advanced training and carrier qualification of the service’s student pilots destined for fast jets. The Navy studied adopting off the shelf trainers, including the Dassault/Dornier Alpha Jet and several all new designs. Evaluation proved the relatively economic operation of the Hawk compared to its contemporaries and it was selected for further development to tailor it to the US Navy requirement in November 1981, with McDonnell Douglas as the prime contractor and British Aerospace as the principal subcontractor. McDonnell Douglas and British Aerospace have had a close working relationship since the 1970s with MDC’s work on the Harrier family.
The changes from the Hawk to the Goshawk are significant, although the family resemblance is obvious. Most of the changes to the Hawk revolved around developing it for carrier operations. Obvious changes include the addition of an arrester hook, new twin nosewheel undercarriage with catapult towbar and strengthened main undercarriage. The Hawk’s nose was deepened to accept the new nosewheel while the wing was fitted with full span leading edge slats and the wingtips were squared off. The airframe was strengthened to handle the stresses of carrier catapult launches and arrested landings. Modifications to the rear of the fuselage include two composite construction air brakes, one on either side of the fuselage while a ventral unit was added forward of the arrester hook. The height of the fin was also increased by 15cm (6in) to cope with a higher nose angle on approach, the tailplane span increased and the rudder was also modified to enhance low speed control. Forward of the horizontal tail on either side of the fuselage are small fins (dubbed smurfs — side mounted unit root fins) which were added to eliminate pitch down during low speed manoeuvres.
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