…in knowing what ya’ll mugs think about the Harrier jet? I have been doing some research on the “jump-jet” and find it to be a very fascinating, but flawed, aircraft…
…thoughts? Opinions? Are they even in service still? In other words, what’s the skinny?
Didn’t a bunch of them get blown up on the ground in Afghanistan recently during a ground assault by the bad guys? Like you said, fascinating but flawed. In the Falklands, its peculiar characteristics served it and the British well, although it arguably had no viable air to air opposition. In the ‘91 Gulf War, and over the Balkans it was shown to be particularly vulnerable to heat seeking missiles due to its’ engine nozzle placement, and not overly survivable to battle damage from those types of SAMs. But it still has served fairly well in the light attack role in the Balkans and South West Asia.
According to my knowledge the Harrier is still being use by us, brits, indians, thai and spain. But i have not checked recently so this could be dated. Why would a harrier be flawed? I think it is a very effective design for a vtol aircraft. And I mean this from a technical/enginering standpoint. Just look at the other vtol jets (yak-38, yak-141 and JSF). They all use a liftfan, that is is dead weight during fllight. The harrier is far more effective with the turning nozzles. And this was the first trust vectoring used on jets (so called viffing). Furthermore,The combat record of the Harrier, particulary the Falklands, is good.
So flawed that unc Sam bought in…
I don’t know much about them; just what I picked up on the Great Planes episode.
I do know that I wouldn’t have wanted to be a test pilot when thu were testing some of those VTOL aircraft that lreceeeed it. Like the one that was hung on a hook that the pilot had to manuver to for “landing.” I also wouldn’t want to have to be in the cockpit trying to attach to that ridiculous thing the British hung off the side if smaller ships. (don’t know that it was ever actually used).
I believe the harrier was retired by the UK at the end of 2010. I saw one hover at near the Intrepid Carrier in NYC a number of years back during fleet week. Awesome sight and sound - it was about 50 feet above the water.
Not only bought in but pretty much took over… The GR.5 and GR.7 are essentially RAF changes to the McDonnell Douglas AV-8B. The GR.3 and FRS.2 Harriers are really the last 'true British" designs.
The lift fan offers the advantage of moving the largest heat signature away from center mass of the aircraft. Stealth is the reduction of IR as well as Radar signatures. I believe that is one of several reasons that the JSF moved away from the Pegasus engine style of VTOL.
Flawed in the sense that the early and mid designs had a very limited payload capability…and I believe all were subsonic …it really wasn’t made to go head-to-head with pure fighters and as a ground-attack a/c had a very light ordnance load…
…no doubt that it is/was an engineering marvel, but on the other hand, the Brits have de-commissioned them, as far as I know…
True, it pretty much cleaned up in the Falklands, but this was against an adversary that could be best described as third-world…the Argentine’s never really attempted to gain air-superiority over the brits even though they had better fighters in their Mirage III’s…
The Mirage III’s and Daggers were fighting at the extreme edge of their range envelopes. They could not really even begin to maneuver or operate in a manner that would have exploited the strengths of their fighters. They did not have the fuel to do so. Much like the Bf-109s over London during the Battle of Britain. Had the Argies had refueling probes on their Mirages & Daggers, to allow them to enter combat with a full fuel load, they potentially could have won air superiority and with that, that war would have gone far differently.
And yes, until the AV-8B/GR.5 the payload on a Harrier was far less than on the US aircraft that it replaced, the A-4 Skyhawk. I beleive that radius of action was inferior as well.
But without it, what would would Arnie have flown in “True Lies”?
I actually was training as an engineer on the Sea Harrier while in the Royal Navy back in 2000 before transferring to the warfare/intel side and I have to say the Sea Harrier was a very good plane, it was subsonic but it had the worlds best radar system at the time the Blue Vixen radar so good that during operations over Sierra Leone in 1999 they were used as an AWACS platform from HMS Illustrious. The sea harrier on almost every occasion won in simulated air to air combat, because the equipment and technology in the avionics was so good combined with such a powerful radar made it an extremely effective fighter. So much so that the Harrier (I am not trying to annoy anyone here just saying what was happening) could quite easily take down F-18/C Hornets and also F-14 Tomcats. The Harrier was very ugly with it’s bottle nose and not even that fast but it had the equipment on board to make it a very tough opponent. Also the Harrier FRS2 the one I was trained on had a pretty bad record for it’s pilots as almost every time one crashed the pilot was killed, usually the pilot would not be found as behind him was a 9 ton Pegasus engine which turned into a giant blender during a crash so yeah not nice. However the range was not very good as the FRS2 was so compact that the wings could not hold much fuel, more so the wings were called stabilisers as when the engine cut out on them the FRS2 that is it could not glide the wings were too small they plummeted like rock and it probably was the reason for the the high fatality percentage when they crashed. The Royal Navy needed a Fighter for fleet protection and when the FRS2 was retired the British military lost it’s only pure fighter, and it was replaced by the GR7 which was an attacker and had no radar so would be useless in a dogfight they had GPS but they due to budget cuts were scrapped along with the Jaguar. The Harriers are now in storage in England and some have been bought if not all by the USMC as a source of spares for the AV8B version.
Interesting points there Dean. And in a straight one on one close in dogfight under equal starting conditions, the possibility that a Sea Harrier with AMRAAMS and late model Sidewinders could kill a Tomcat or Hornet exists. But when the Tomcats are operating under the standard procedures tied in to AWACS & AEGIS fleet radars by data link and armed with Phoenix missiles, the Tomcat can kill the Sea Harrier and pretty much any other aircraft well outside their ability to hit back.
one of the benefits of the Harrier in USMC usage is that they take off and land on a “Carrier” that has no catapults or arrestor gear
without Harriers, those ships would not have a fixed wing aircraft for any kind of defense or close air support missions,the Bronco seen on the old LHA-1 does not count, lol,and Sea Cobras can’t do everything as the attackers,some of the most useful attack jets in our history have been subsonic, the Harrier follows in the footsteps of the Skyhawk, the Intruder, and the Corsair II,except those all needed a “real” carrier to operate
The thing is in actual exercises we did with and against the USN the Harriers always defeated the bigger faster USN aircraft in an exercise where all the dataliink systems were used, due to its radar, the original sleek nose on the FRS1 had to be changed as the new radar actually melted the nose and a new one had to be designed, but I am saying only what happened and its not a direct comparison by saying head to head this and that would happen I’m talking in a simulation where two opposing Navies fought each other in real time using all systems i.e. force protection, datalink systems at the time it was LINK 10, all radars basically a war at sea the Harrier still beat the Tomcats and Hornets and this is due in large part to the extremely powerful radar the FRS2 had, that combined with the AMRAAMS made it more than a match for just about any aircraft at sea at the time its why they were used as they were not great machines mechanically speaking and of course they did get shot down by USN aircraft too but when you consider that we are talking 13 Harriers successfully taking on the USS Enterprise where the Enterprise was sunk its pretty impressive, in one day during BALTOPS 6 Sea Harriers in air to air combat got 48 simulated kills against the Enterprises air arm before they were shot down so when you read on paper what these aircraft can do its not always accurate on purpose.
Also the FRS2 Sea Harriers were sold to India so they are still viable, I don’t know how they would fare against the new Hornets as they were not in service when I was lol, but the Sea Harrier FRS2 was and old plane and Honestly without the radar they would have been useless, I think I have some pictures of the hangar in the ship from when I served on board I will post them, bearing in mind these were taken before the digital cameras were available so no good quality but you will see. But I have to say for me even after what I have said and it is true, I always loved the F-14 and I still remember during the BALTOPS exercise we did a PHOTOEX and we were within a stones throw of the Enterprise and I could read the serial numbers on the Tomcats and just being awestruck looking at the Tomcats on board the Enterprise that is a sight I will not forget it was simply incredible!! i will see what pics if any I have from the hangar I think there are some.
Can’t call it flawed, quite capable at a very specific role. Build one Manny! New Airfix kit is reccomended…