DSK Airmotive Hawk explained

The DSK Airmotive DSK-1 Hawk was an unusual homebuilt aircraft designed in the United States in the early 1970s. While the design itself was utterly conventional - a single-seat low-wing cantilever monoplane with fixed tricycle undercarriage - its method of construction was not, since the DSK-1 Hawk used a surplus 200 US Gal military drop tank as its fuselage. Designer Richard Killingsworth sold over 250 sets of plans.^[1]

Development

The DSK-1 featured "drooping ailerons" that acted as flaps for short field operations.

Variants

A follow-on design, the DSK-2 Golden Hawk with a more conventional fuselage for builders who could not obtain a suitable drop tank. This was expected to fly in 1976, but on 12 April 1975, Killingsworth was killed when the Hawk prototype crashed shortly after takeoff.

References

• Book: Taylor . John W. R. . Jane's All the World's Aircraft 1980-81 . 1980 . Jane's Yearbooks . London . 0-7106-0705-9 .
• Book: Taylor, Michael J. H. . Jane's Encyclopedia of Aviation . 1989 . Studio Editions . London . 347 .
• Book: Jane's All the World's Aircraft 1977-78 . Jane's Yearbooks . London . 535.

Notes and References

1. Popular Mechanics. The Homebuilt You Have to See to Believe. May 1974.