For half a century the Red Arrows have signed the British sky in red, white and blue, drawn by nine BAE Hawks flying wingtip to wingtip. This summer the signature was incomplete: worn-out Hawk T1s forced the team to fly seven jets for most of its 2026 displays rather than the famous nine. Now the Ministry of Defence has fired the starting gun on finding their successor.

The MoD has issued a Request for Information for a single new jet trainer to replace both marks of the Hawk — the advanced T2 that trains Britain’s fast-jet pilots at RAF Valley, and the veteran T1 the Red Arrows still fly. Interested suppliers have until 11 September 2026 to raise their hands.

A diamond down to seven

The Hawk first flew in 1974, and the Red Arrows’ airframes are now among the oldest of the type anywhere. Serviceability has fallen so far that the team spent most of the 2026 season flying seven-jet shapes instead of the trademark Diamond Nine. For a squadron whose entire reason for being is precision spectacle, a smaller formation is a very public symptom of a fleet running out of road.

One jet to replace two

Last year’s Strategic Defence Review called for both marks of Hawk to be retired in favour of a single, cost-effective trainer, with the work steered wherever possible toward British industry. The new RFI does not commit the government to anything — it is a formal request for suppliers to describe what they could offer — but it is the first concrete step in the programme.

The core of the contract is expected to be the T2 advanced-training role, with scope written in to fold the Red Arrows’ T1s into the same buy — though that, officials caution, depends on the deals eventually signed.

Who is in the running

BAE Systems, which built the Hawk in the first place, has teamed with Boeing and Saab to pitch a version of the T-7 Red Hawk. Leonardo’s M-346 is the other obvious contender. The British-industry priority tilts the field toward whichever bid can promise the most UK assembly and jobs — a familiar three-way tug between cost, sovereignty and capability.

The Red Arrows will keep flying their Hawks for a few more seasons yet. But the search for the jet that will carry the world’s most famous aerobatic team into its next era has, at last, begun.

Sources: UK Ministry of Defence; UK Defence Journal; The Aviationist; Halldale Group.