On 23rd September 2022 a large group of HA members drove to Old Sarum to visit the BDAC mainly to see the first Hawk, XX154, which, as we heard at a meeting on April 13th after the AGM, has been bought by Chris Hodson. He had offered to host us and to carry out some demonstrations on this largely functional, but engineless, airframe.
    On arrival Chris gave us an introductory briefing then took us into the hangar where he had an hydraulic rig connected to the jacked aircraft. This allowed him to retract the undercarriage and exercise the flying controls and flaps. The aircraft looked pristine in its highly polished (by Chris) gloss black finish with ETPS (Empire Test Pilot’s School) livery.
    We then all had a good look round the extensive collection of complete aircraft, nose sections with cockpits, scale models galore and a variety of aviation memorabilia. Aside from XX154 the aircraft included a Sea Harrier FA2, a Jaguar GR1, the Avro 707A, the English Electric P1A, a Tornado, a remarkable BE2 reproduction, and Meteor Mk16 and Jindivik target drones. Among the front fuselages was a Supermarine Swift FMk7, a Harrier GR3, a Sea Vixen and an ETPS Hawk.