Originally Posted by
jaymen
That's Hobie flying his Hawk up by the water tower on the hill above the Hospital in San Clemente.
Bob and Katie Martin bought the Hobie hawk tooling from Midwest and produced several thousand of them in the mid 1980s. In the early 1990s Dennis Ross obtained the tooling from the Martins and made a run of Hobie Hawks. Since then, a "Carbon Hawk" was produced in Europe, and here, a "Super Hawk" was made in a very limited production run.
The Hawk demanded a lot from the pilot, but in return, it rewarded you with excellent performance.
We estimate that between Hobie, Midwest, Martin, and Ross, around 20,000 Hawks were made.
Novak made a special 2 channel RS Systems radio for the RTF version of the Hawk with a 2-servo brick. Only Hobie offered ARF and RTF versions, along with the kit version. Subsequent releases of the Hawk were kits only.
Jay, We probably have run into one another at some time. I lived in Costa Mesa and Newport Beach all through the 70s. I flew sailplanes at the slope north of Estancia, Back bay Newport, Salt Creek, Turtle Rock etc. I flew several of Hobie's prototypes and had a few Hobies of my own. I had an all black Hobie I flew for several years. I have three Hobies and I'm getting one ready to fly. The other two are too nice to fly. One has the RS with the brick servo.