plane

The Hawker 800 is a mid-size twinjet corporate aircraft. It is a development of the British Aerospace 125, and was assembled by Hawker Beechcraft.

Design

The Hawker 800 was similar to most modern airframes in requiring sub-assemblies to be constructed away from the final point of manufacture. The fuselage sections, wings and control surfaces were manufactured and assembled in the United Kingdom in a combination of Hawker Beechcraft's own facility and those owned by Airbus UK, which inherited much of BAE Systems's civil aircraft manufacturing capacity. These sections are partially fitted out and installed with control surfacing and major systems before being shipped to Hawker Beechcraft's main manufacturing site in Wichita, Kansas for final assembly, fitting out and testing.

Military variants

Japan uses a maritime search and rescue variant of the Hawker 800. It is designated the U-125A in Japan Air Self-Defense Force service. This variant has large observation windows, a flare and marker-buoy dispenser system, life-raft and emergency equipment dropping system and enhanced salt water corrosion prevention. The aircraft also has a Toshiba 360-degree search radar, Melco thermal imaging equipment and other military communications equipment for its mission.[5]

A military version of the Hawker 800XP is in use by South Korea for tactical aerial reconnaissance, surveillance and SIGINT (SIGnals INTelligence) tasks, and 8 specially equipped aircraft were delivered in 2000. The Republic of Korea Air Force calls them RC-800s, and they are based at Seoul Air Base.