The BAE Systems Hawk is a British single-engine, advanced jet trainer aircraft. It was first flown at Dunsfold, Surrey, in 1974 as the Hawker Siddeley Hawk, and subsequently produced by its successor companies, British Aerospace and BAE Systems, respectively. It has been used in a training capacity and as a low-cost combat aircraft.

Operators of the Hawk include the Royal Air Force (notably the Red Arrows display team) and a considerable number of foreign military operators. The Hawk is still in production in the UK and under licence in India by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) with over 900 Hawks sold to 18 operators around the world.

The Hawk 128 is the new Advanced Jet Trainer (AJT) for the RAF and Royal Navy. The Mk. 128 includes modern LCD displays instead of conventional instrumentation and is powered by the Rolls-Royce Adour 951 engine. The Ministry of Defence awarded a Design and Development Contract to BAE Systems on 22 December 2004. The T2 builds on the design of the Australian Mk. 127 and the South African Mk. 120s. A similar aircraft is currently being built under license in India for the IAF.

In 2012 orders were placed for the AJT version by the Royal Saudi Air Force and the Royal Omani Air Force for 22 and 8 aircraft respectively.

Airfix has already done this aircraft in 1/48 scale and with the release of the new tool 1/72 Hawk T.1, it was only a matter of time before we would see this latest version hit the shelves. Pretty much everything that was true of the 1/72 T.1 kit is true for this one as well.

Typical of the latest batch of Airfix new molds, the engraved detail, which is really quite good, seems to be a bit much, especially when compared to the Japanese and even newer Czech releases. However, few have really found that to be a deal breaker.

 This one has a nice, though somewhat basic cockpit with decals for the instruments and a pair of crew members to help hide the bare seats. There are nicely done landing gear with complete wells. The nose gear is attached when the fuselage halves are cemented together, increasing the opportunity to break it during construction, though to be frank, it is a rather sturdy piece. The two piece canopy includes the blast shield, something missed in some other kits. Like other kits, it has it attached to the canopy. All of the gear doors and the speed brake can be posed up or down as one wishes, though there is no in flight display stand. For stuff to put under the plane there is a gun pod, and either tanks or Sidewinders, the latter of which are nicely molded. Thankfully, Airfix have not pre-opened these attachment holes so one can build a clean airframe.

In order to make the newer version, Airfix had added two new sprues. One contains the new fuselage halves. The other has new upper wings, the new strakes in front of the fin and things like wingtip sidewinder rails. All of the other bits were contained on the earlier sprues.

Instructions are typical for Airfix in that they are well drawn, follow a logical build progression, and continue to use only Humbrol paint numbers for any colors needed. It isn't until we get the full color markings and exterior painting guide that we get generic names for some of these colors and only if used to paint the outside of the model. The markings are for three planes. One is a generic all-black Hawk T.2 for the RAF. One is a nice grey scheme for an Indian Air Force version and one is for the box art plane, which is the demonstrator. All of the black parts of the scheme are decals so one only needs to paint the two grey shades. Thanks to black being quite opaque, one only has to get these greys close and the decals will cover the rest. Decals are nicely printed and will work with most setting solutions.