Hawk Industries GAF-125 "GAFHawk 125"
The Aircraft
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</TD></TR><TR><TD>GAFHawk N101GH as we found it, stored next to All West Freight's hangar at their private airfield. The aircraft is still complete and looks very much flyable.
Click on the photo for a larger image.
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During a visit on 11 June 2006 to
All West Airport (AK77) near Delta Junction in Alaska, an aircraft was noted in storage there of a type I could not recognize. It was a medium-sized high-wing freighter aircraft with a square-section fuselage and a single large radial engine in the nose. It carried the registration N101GH, and the data plate revealed it to be a Hawk Industries GAF-125, msn 001.
Once back home, I searched the books and other resources for information on this aircraft, and it turned out to be a very special and unique machine. The GAF-125 was developed by Hawk Industries Inc. from Yucca Valley, CA. This company specialised in equipment and tools for the off-shore oil industry, and was looking for a more efficient way to transport their products all over the country. Road transport was too slow most of the time, and loading their large and unusually-shaped products onto conventional aircraft often posed many expensive and time-consuming problems.
And so in July 1977, the president of the company, Ernest Hauk (not Hawk!), initiated the development of a freighter aircraft that was to overcome these problems. He named it the GAF-125 GAFHawk, with GAF meaning General Aviation Freighter. The name later changed to GAFHawk 125. The design would have to meet many demands: rear loading door for easy on/off loading, STOL capability for remote airstrips, square-section fuselage for maximum loading efficiency, single engine to lower maintenance time and cost, single-pilot operation etc.