4 February 2025
New Version 2 software for our
MSFS Hawk T1/A Advanced Trainer is now available and is free to download from your Just Flight
Account. The updated Hawk software will be available from third-party stores soon if you bought the Hawk elsewhere.
Version 2 of the Hawk updates the aircraft in MSFS 2020, bringing numerous improvements and new features, and will also add MSFS 2024 compatibility. Some of the major updates are listed below.
If you haven't already flown the Hawk, there's never been a better time time to buy it - you can get
20% OFF the usual price until Tuesday 18 February!
New and improved flight model
Since the Hawk’s initial release in 2021, the multitude of MSFS Sim Updates have made significant changes to the simulator’s core flight model, as well as opening up additional parameters that we, as developers, can take advantage of. With all of these changes, the Hawk no longer handled the way it was once finely tuned to do, and we felt that it was necessary to start again from scratch.
You will still need to fly the Hawk just like its real-life counterpart, such as raising the nose gear off the runway at 90 knots before feeling the main gear lift off at 120 knots, and you will still need to set the power settings correctly to maintain the appropriate speed during the various phases of flight. The speed/thrust relationship is one area in particular which has been finely tuned with the assistance of real-life Hawk pilots.
You will notice that the aircraft is much more flyable and controllable now through all phases of flight, whether that’s at 420 knots and 400ft through the Mach Loop, or during a high energy airshow routine. The Hawk is a pleasure to fly!
New weapons functionality
A community favourite feature from our MSFS
Avro Vulcan B Mk.2, K.2 and MRR also makes its appearance in the Hawk. With this Version 2 update, it is now possible to fire Sidewinder missiles, drop practice bombs and jettison payloads. These can be triggered either via their respective controls in the cockpit or via MSFS control assignments, the latter of which are now listed in the updated manual.
Thanks to some recent changes in the in-game Marketplace policy, we are now also able to include static weapons in the PC and Xbox Marketplace versions of our aircraft. Although these weapons won’t be animated in the Marketplace versions, we feel that this is still a great step forward in allowing Marketplace customers to see the various weapons that are included with the aircraft
.
New liveries
Four new high quality liveries further expand the array of colourful liveries already included with the Hawk:
-
FiAF Midnight Hawks HW-341 (Leader’s Aircraft, 2017 Display Season)
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RAF Red Arrows XX239 (60th Diamond Season)
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RAF 1TWU XX280
-
RSAF Saudi Falcons 8805
As part of the Saudi Falcon’s livery, the Hawk is now able to produce green smoke when this livery is selected. The green smoke will replace the blue smoke used by the Red Arrows liveries to accurately represent the coloured smoke the relevant display teams use.
We have also added logic which limits the amount of smoke that can be produced by the aircraft on each flight. Just as the real display teams have a finite amount of each coloured smoke available during every display, we have now simulated that a maximum of five minutes of white smoke and one minute of red/blue/green smoke can be produced every flight. This adds a whole new layer of strategy when flying airshow routines, ensuring that you use your smoke tactically throughout the display for maximum effectiveness. As a quality-of-life feature we have added the option to refill the smoke system ‘on the fly’, and also an option to enable unlimited smoke so you can continuously paint the skies without ever worrying about running out.
EFB improvements
The Just Flight v3 EFB also makes its way into the Hawk. Previously included in our recent
RJ Professional and
Vulcan MSFS updates, this EFB features a redesigned interface and also includes new features such as Navigraph enroute charts.
The EFB's Aircraft app has also seen a minor overhaul and now uses a greyscale colour pallet that was previously seen in our
PA-38 Tomahawk for MSFS.
MSFS 2024 compatibility
Along with the plethora of new features, the Version 2 update also brings MSFS 2024 compatibility to the Hawk.
We'll send the new software to third-party retailers and it will also be uploaded to the MSFS 2020 in-game Marketplace. The MSFS 2024 in-game Marketplace is sadly not yet available, so we are currently unable to upload the Hawk to the MSFS 2024 Marketplace. We will, however, ensure that the Hawk appears in the MSFS 2024 Marketplace as soon as possible.
Minor bug fixes and improvements
The V2 software also provides various bug fixes based on reports that we have received from the community since the last update, as well as various other improvements such as improved navigation light modelling, improved altimeter drum animations etc.