Acquired this new nice small Hawk as a replacement for my 70mm FW F-104 missile ... The 104 flies very nicely but in the silver scheme is a bit hard to see on the landing approach when it comes toward you.

With the idea of moving my power setup from the F-104 tom the Hawk, I got just the $169 airframe ("Arf-Plus") kit :

http://sz-freewing.com/

https://www.motionrc.com/products/fr...awk-t1-red-arp

https://www.motionrc.eu/collections/jets-and-ducted-fan

https://www.rc-castle.com/index.php?...th=470_507_508

It is a pity they don't make a similar, no frills & lightweight one, in a bigger size ~90mm

I love the way Hawks fly, this is my ninth edf one from what I can count (the first one was a Gloeckner kit with a Schwerdfeger 69mm fan) ... Too bad the larger FW offerings are either airliners (A-10) or that overcomplex F-14.

It turns out this Hawk also runs rings around my overbelled and overwhistled FW 90mm F-16 even though the latter has a very powerful JetFan / HET 700 combo in it .

Edit: Short video added:

BAe Hawk Red Arrows edf by Freewing Maiden (4 min 17 sec)

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BAe Hawk FW 70mm landing (0 min 22 sec)

I was on the fence bewteen thsi Hawk and the FMS one, they are very similar in size :

https://www.motionrc.com/products/fr...awk-t1-red-arp

http://www.fmsmodel.com/fms-80mm-bae-hawk-pnp

FMS qouted me a price of $260 incl. shipping fro their comparble arf-plus version (no fan, motor & esc).

The FW is 102cm wingspan, while the FMS one is 104cm, a 2% difference in size.

Since the wingspan of the original is 9.94m ,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAE_Systems_Hawk#Hawk_T1

the scale on the FW is in the ~ 9.7 scale region.

Looking at the overall size of the model, it would seem a decent quality 70mm fan should fly it fine. Nevertheless the FMS 80mm fan is indeed larger but relatively lightweight and seemingly efficient, with a nice inrunner motor:

https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/show...EDF-fan&pp=100

A size comparison shows that the Hawk is quite a bit sleeker than my 80mm FW A-4, and comparable in size to the small 70mm FW F-16 and F-104 :

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The fit and finish on this Hawk seems to be very good, in the packager from MRC I also got the upgraded struts, thus getting rid of the (very robust looking) chicken legs.

Unfortunately the hinges are a step back from the F-104, foam hinges on elevators and ailerons.

Interestingly enough, for once FW paid attention to the inside (ducting) of the plane as well as the outside

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Tail assembly,

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Wing assembly ... I replaced the stock struts with the $42 aluminum upgrade package, which went in with no issues:

https://www.motionrc.com/products/fr...rbing-gear-set

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The cheesegrter intake on the bottom allows more air to be fed to the fan.

Apart from the known detrimental effect on performance (tends to create turbulence right in front of the fan), on my jets this tends to suck in every possible piece of debris on the runway, leading eventually to a badly chipped fan.

Here nevertheless the cheater holes seem a bit more discrete ... The main intakes already account for 89% FSA for the MiniFan evo.

To avoid fod ingestion, I covered the holes with a stainless steel mesh (plastic mesh not strong enough).

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Mainstays...ainer/15042727

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The 4-yr old WeMoTec fan, 4-yr old Arc motor & new YEP (YGE clone) esc were transplanted from the FW F-104 (retired with honors, and sold) :

https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/show...reewing&pp=100

The 60mm outlet could be considered a bit big for the MF480 for a fast model, but this Hawk is not particularly fast so the stock outlet will do for now.

WeMoTec MiniFan EVO 70mm 9-blade page:

https://shop.wemotec.com/Mini-Fan-evo-9-blades

The Arc motor is a 28-48-1.5 high performance inrunner with a 2800kv.

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From the F-104 I also transplanted the receiver and gyro ... The HE A3 Super II needed some fine adjustments as described here

https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/show...my-Jets&pp=100

In particular aileron and rudder gain had to be reversed ... As in my other FW edfs I used that neat FW blue junction box.

The wiring was tied up with zip ties at the end, after everything had been triple checked.

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For the CG I relied on the manual, which worked just fine for the maiden

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My throws were low compared to the manual, it looks like FW likes 3d-plane type throws and expo on edf jets

I still had too much throw on the ailerons, rolled like a drill bit on the maiden which is quite unrealistic, I think I now have just ~ +- 12mm (have to re-measure).

Initially I had flap-to-elevator mixing, which I reduced to just 4% on the second flight.

On the maiden mine needed a few clicks of "up" and a few clicks of "left" and that was about it. CG seemed right on.

On the third flight I checked the gyro as well.

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Short video added :

BAe Hawk Red Arrows edf by Freewing Maiden (4 min 17 sec)

Great review and build info.

Hi Bob, Thanks

It's frustrating that they never choose to do this in the right size, 90mm and instead went for all those other overweight 80/90mm pigs, starting with that F-14 boondogle and the atrocious F-15 & T-45. Must be economics - or just ignorance about basic edf design ??

Nice write up Herb!
After much coaxing from my brother to try this / his plane (i am not a big fan of EDF's or jets) but i quickly fell in love with it. Now it's my plane. LOL
To be fair he does have two other Yak 130's in the same category which perform very similarly. These planes work very efficiently off of grass runways, seem to have that magic power to weight ratio.

Hi Thanks !

Yes it is LIGHTWEIGHT so I would imagine it would perform reasonably well off grass too ...