AH20 m a r c h 2 0 1 6

LIFTOFF A British Aerospace Sea Harrier FA.2 takes off from HMS Invincible during Exercise Magic Carpet 05 in March 2005.

AH 21M a r c h 2 0 1 6

IN THE ELUSIVE QUEST TO DEVELOP A PRACTICAL VERTICAL TAKEOFF AND LANDING WARPLANE, ONLY THE HAWKER SIDDELEY HARRIER HAS ACHIEVED REAL-WORLD SUCCESS BY STEPHAN WILKINSON

JUMP JET

22 AH m a r c h 2 0 1 6

PR

EV

IOU

S P

AG

ES

: C

RO

WN

CO

PY

RIG

HT;

LE

FT:

©T

RIN

ITY

MIR

RO

R/A

LA

MY;

RIG

HT:

IA

N T

YAS

/K

EY

ST

ON

E/G

ET

TY

IM

AG

ES

work in the early 1920s devel-oping an all-metal monoplane

-posed a Harrier-like VTOL

-

-

-

-

-

Harrier looks the way it does

-

-

-

-

The Harrier is a remarkable airplane. Which, unfortunately, is not the same thing as a great airplane.

TEST SQUADRON Hawker Siddeley Kestrels, the Harrier’s forerunners, line up for takeoff and landing evaluations.

23AHM a r c h 2 0 1 6

blage balances in relation to the airplane’s center of gravity and the wing’s center of lift. The Harrier’s Pegasus, however, is immovable. Its four nozzles determine the all-important CG, and the airplane must remain perfectly balanced around that point. To keep the moment arm of the weight forward of the engine manageable, the cockpit must be snuggled as close to the Pegasus as possible, and the pilot ends up sitting like a Formula 1 driver, with his shoulders not many inches forward of the big three-disc fan.

Small as it is, the Harrier’s wing still must be high-mounted, to allow a clear area below for the swiveling nozzles’ thrust. (That wing is a single spar-through structure that has to be entirely removed to access the engine for heavy maintenance or an engine change.) And with the wing up so high, retractable main

can the gear be designed to retract into the fuselage, since this would put the wheels directly into the jet blast of the nozzles. The rear nozzles are jet-hot, of course, and even the “cold air” coming out of the front nozzles is hot enough to boil water or blister tires. So the Harrier has centerline bicycle gear, with a single double-wheel main strut aft, a nosewheel forward and a pair of outriggers near the wingtips.

The considerable anhedral of the Harrier’s wings and hori-

is a small yaw indicator—a miniature weathervane, essentially sailplane technology—just in front of the windscreen, to keep the pilot from venturing into this danger zone

The Harrier’s elephant ear airscoops are so enormous be-

there would be on a conventional jet. The Harrier must gulp its own intake air rather than having it shoved down its throat. To aid in accomplishing this, each scoop also has a row of blow-in doors just aft of the intake lip. They are spring-loaded and are sucked in automatically to provide more intake area when

the airspeed diminishes. (Un like a conventional air-craft’s engine, the Pegasus is running at full power and

stages of an approach and a verti cal landing.)

Why the increased interest in vertical

-ing? What even-

tually became the Harrier had originally been viewed as an

short-range bomber intercep-tor, since World War II had made aerial blitz Britain’s great fear. But at the height of the Cold War, it also became apparent that World War III could well begin with the Warsaw Pact’s air forces cra-tering every runway in Eu rope

-tional frontline fighters and attack aircraft. Unless, that

quickly prepared short strips. Though the Harrier was

airplane, the source of the jump-jet moniker, it quickly became obvious that a

be done with a near-empty airplane—carrying just enough fuel to do its act at an airshow, say. In the real world,

machines. Carrying bombs, bullets and a mission-load of

a ground—or carrier-deck—run and land vertically only after returning with ordnance

The British rightly claim Harrier patrimony, but the United States was involved with the airplane from the out-set. Wibault’s vectored thrust was initially championed by

Weapons Development Agency, after U.S. Air Force Colonel Willis Chapman of

persuasive Wibault at a Paris Air Show. Before the British government ever got behind the Hawker Siddeley P.1127

wind-tunnel models of the air-

Center and had built a 1/6th-scale, radio-controlled P.1127 model that success-fully made vertical takeoffs

which was hugely encouraged by the data.

Three-quarters of the fund-ing for the original Pegasus engine prototype was pro-vided by the U.S., the remain-ing 25 percent covered by Bristol as a private venture because the government couldn’t afford to back the company’s achievement. And of course the major purchase of first-generation-Harrier

Corps and the consequent for-mation of a license-produc-tion and development venture

(before it became part of

READY FOR ANYTHING A Harrier lurks beneath camouflage netting in Germany during a NATO exercise in June 1981.

THE BRITISH RIGHTLY CLAIM HARRIER PATRIMONY, BUT THE UNITED STATES WAS INVOLVED WITH THE AIRPLANE FROM THE OUTSET.

24 m a r c h 2 0 1 6AH

TECH NOTES BAE HARRIER II GR.5

SPECIFICATIONS ENGINEPratt & Whitney F402-RR-406 (Pegasus 105) turbofan producing 21,800 pounds of thrust

WINGSPAN 30 feet 4 inches

WING AREA 344 square feet

LENGTH 46 feet 4 inches

HEIGHT11 feet 8 inches

WEIGHT 13,970 pounds (empty)22,950 pounds (normal takeoff)20,595 pounds (vertical takeoff)

FUEL CAPACITY7,500 pounds (internal) Up to four 300-gallon tanks (external)

MAXIMUM PAYLOAD 13,235 pounds (short takeoff)4,000 pounds (vertical takeoff)

MAX SPEED 675 mph (at sea level) 647 mph (at altitude)

CEILING 38,000 feet

FERRY RANGE 1,800 nautical miles

ARMAMENT One General Electric GAU-12/U 25mm cannon with 300 rounds in adjacent identical pod

9,200 pounds of bombs, rockets, missiles or auxiliary fuel tanks

Note: general specs are for the McDonnell Douglas AV-8B

AUTOMATIC MANEUVERING

FLAP

ROLL CONTROLREACTION AIR

VALVE

STAINLESS STEEL WING LEADING EDGE

(UNIQUE TO HARRIER GR.5)

MAIN LANDING

GEAR

AIR BRAKE

ZERO SCARF FORWARD (FAN AIR)

SWIVELING NOZZLE (A)

REAR SWIVELING HOT EXHAUST

NOZZLE (B)

ECM EQUIPMENT

MODULE

OUTRIGGER LANDING GEAR

OUTRIGGER HOUSING

PITCH AND YAW CONTROL REACTION AIR

VALVES

AILERON

25AHM a r c h 2 0 1 6

ILLU

ST

RA

TIO

N: J

OH

N B

AT

CH

ELO

R;

PH

OT

O:

RO

LLS

-RO

YC

E

Seldom in aviation history have airplane and engine been as mutually dependent as the Harrier and the Pegasus. Conceived by French designer Michel Wibault between 1952 and 1955, the Pegasus turbojet was capable of redirecting its thrust for vertical takeoff and landing. Starting in 1957, Gordon Lewis and his engineering team at Bristol Aero

Engines Ltd. simplified and lightened Wibault’s design, incorporating axial compressors and pairs of rotatable nozzles. The BE.53 turbojet, bench-tested in 1959, went on to become the Rolls-Royce Pegasus that first raised the Hawker Siddeley P.1127 off the ground in 1960.

FERRANTI FIN-1075 INTERNAL NAVIGATION

SYSTEM

AIM-9 SIDEWINDER

MISSILE

HIGH RECOVERY

INLET

LANDING LIGHTS

NOSE LANDING GEAR

300-GALLON AUXILIARY FUEL TANK

POD-MOUNTED ROYAL ORDNANCE ADEN 25MM GAS-OPERATED

REVOLVER CANNON

HEART OF THE HARRIER

(A) (B)

MARTIN-BAKER MK.12 EJECTION SEAT

BLOW-IN INTAKE DOOR

LEADING EDGE ROOT EXTENSION

ROLLS-ROYCE PEGASUS 11 (MK.105) TURBOFAN ENGINE

PITCH CONTROL REACTION AIR VALVE

26 AH m a r c h 2 0 1 6

LE

FT:

©C

LOV

ER

B. C

HR

IST

EN

SE

N/

EP

A/C

OR

BIS

; R

IGH

T: I

MP

ER

IAL

WA

R M

US

EU

M F

KD

23

00

Boeing) were of enormous consequence. MacDac turned the original Harrier from “an airplane that couldn’t carry a ciga-

and a machine with capabilities and sophistication that make early Harriers look like airshow toys.

Just as the English Electric Canberra became the Martin

-frame as well as a substantially upgraded Pegasus engine.

15-percent larger yet 330 pounds lighter all-composite wing

caused by the larger and thicker wing’s increased drag. The

lateral air dam that help to localize and contain the column of thrust from the downward-rotated nozzles.

The Harrier was origi-nally intended to be a

-

that would carry the name

combat aircraft could claim legitimacy without being able to seriously bust the Mach.

failure as an export item. -

Harrier was sold only to the

far as the rest of the world was

and the Harrier was transonic at best.

perfect Harrier customer. It was a small country with few

its concerns and allowed a

high-pressure fuel cock rather than the nozzle control and shut down the engine. The Har rier dropped like a rock while he ejected.

This despite the fact that

THE HARRIER WAS ORIGINALLY INTENDED TO BE A SUPERSONIC FIGHTER TO TUSSLE WITH THE SOVIETS FOR AIR SUPERIORITY.

ALMOST THERE Flight directors on USS Essex watch an AV-8B Harrier II land during Operation Enduring Freedom in October 1991.

27AHM a r c h 2 0 1 6

learned the hard way that it required a particularly skilled pilot to safely fly a Harrier. They had practiced air com-bat maneuvering against the

who wanted a piece of them. During one set of practice sorties, three RN Sea Harrier pilots with Falklands experi-ence scored 27 wins versus 10 losses flying against nimble Air Force F-5Es. A fighter wing of F-15s at Bitburg, West Germany, traveled to England to even the score but ended up losing seven to one. And when the RAF tried its own F-4 Phantoms against the new Sea Harriers—and no love is lost between the two services—they were particu-larly embarrassed to lose 25 to one.

The Argentines, however, had no competent opponents against whom they could practice, and their last seri-ous ACM instruction came during the seven years that

spent in Argentina as a Fuerza

World War II. They were

range and had no fuel to spare for maneuvering. Nor did the Argentines have electronics that approached what the Harriers carried.

from their own carriers with the battle coming to them, did splendidly at air-to-air,

that the Harriers lost the air war, since enough Argentine aircraft and missiles got past them to sink seven British ships and to hit half a dozen more with bombs that failed to explode. Nor were the Harriers able to interdict the

control, and it was a major engineering achievement. The noz-

where a fuel-mixture control might be in a piston engine air-plane. Moving it full aft shifts the four nozzles to the braking position, pointing 8 degrees ahead of straight down. Forward of that is a hover position, nozzles full down. Advancing the lever

forward movement of the lever. The nozzles react rapidly and are capable of moving 90 degrees in less than a second.

An even more remarkable engineering achievement in aid of

where its aerodynamic surfaces—ailerons, rudder and eleva-

yaw control. They are small nozzles exhausting engine bleed air. One points down at each wingtip, another downward jet is under the nose and three are on the tail stinger, one down and

the thrust nozzles are vectored downward at 55 degrees or more,

moves the stick or rudder pedals, the Harrier responds exactly as it would to its conventional aerodynamic controls, and a feed-

It only took 10 weeks during the spring of 1982 for the British to amortize their entire investment in

the Harrier. The air war against Argentina over the Falkland Islands was fought almost entirely by 42 Royal Air Force Harriers and Royal Navy Sea Harriers, which traveled the 7,800 miles to the

two remaining aircraft car-riers, as well as several cargo

England with doubts linger-ing. A quick U.S. Navy study had declared the reoccupa-tion of the Falklands “a mili-tary impossibility,” and many

imagine how the little Harriers could possibly compete with

rages and Israeli-built Dag-gers. The odds were rumored to be 200, even 400 Argentine aircraft of all types against the handful of Harriers.

In the end, the Argentine air force and navy put up approximately 120 Mirages, Daggers, Super Etenards, A-4 Skyhawks and MB-332s—still 3-to-1 odds—and the RN Sea Harriers downed 23 of them (24 if you count the Mirage that tried to land at

of combat damage but was shot down by Argentine gun-ners when it pickled its bombs in preparation for landing). Sea Harrier air-to-air losses were zero, though six were shot down by groundfire or lost to accidents. The RAF

to-ground sorties and lost a further four.

Did this qualify the Harrier as a superplane? Not really, for the air battle was fought by cream-of-the-crop British pilots, since the Brits had

BAPTISM OF FIRE Harrier GR.3s and Sea Harrier FR.1s line the carrier Hermes’ deck off the Falklands in May 1982.

28 AH m a r c h 2 0 1 6

BRITISH AEROSPACE HARRIER II GR.9 COCKPIT

1. Option display unit2. Head-up display3. Engine performance panel4. Master arm panel5. Left multipurpose

color display6. Caution light panel7. Up-front controller8. Right multipurpose

color display

9. Electronic warfare panel 10. Armament control panel11. Analog flight instruments12. Fuel control panel13. Analog stopwatch14. Water injection/combat

thrust panel15. Landing gear position

indicators16. Control column grip with

controls for pitch/roll trim, sensor selection, waypoint setup, nose wheel steering, SAAHS (stability augmentation and attitude hold system) disengagement and air- to-air/ground weaponry

17. Miscellaneous control panel

18. Hydraulic pressure gauges

19. Caution/advisory light panel

20. Electrical panel21. Gear handle lights22. Nozzles lever23. Engine management

system switch24. Throttle quadrant

5

13

10

1 3

86

14

19

18

12

16

17

22

21

15

11

11

23

24

9

7

2

4

20

29AHM a r c h 2 0 1 6

LE

FT:

NIC

K G

RE

EN

AL

L;

RIG

HT:

U.S

. MA

RIN

E C

OR

PS

daily Argentine C-130 resup-

Dmaneuver cal led

-

-

-

-

-

-ting a minimum grade stan-

-

BY THE LATE 1970S, THE HARRIER HAD A REPUTATION AS A DEMANDING AIRPLANE AT BEST AND A DANGEROUS ONE AT WORST.

--

-

-

-

-

-

�

Contributing editor Stephan Wilkinson suggests for further reading: , by Peter E. Davies and Anthony M. Thornborough;

, by Mike Spick;

, by John Dibbs with Tony Holmes; and

, by Dennis R. Jenkins.

COUNTERINSURGENCY U.S. Marine Corps AV-8Bs of VMA-231 provide close air support over Afghanistanon December 6, 2012.

AH30 m a r c h 2 0 1 6

ARTIST'S CONCEPT Convair’s Model 200, envisioned as a VTOL fighter capable of Mach 2, never left the drawing board.

AH 31M a r c h 2 0 1 6

IN THE EARLY 1970S, THE U.S. NAVY SOUGHT TO DEVELOP VTOL AIRCRAFT THAT COULD FLY FROM

SMALL CARRIERS, BUT THE RESULTING DESIGNS NEVER QUITE GOT OFF THE DECK BY ROBERT GUTTMAN

VERT CAL DREAMS

32 AH m a r c h 2 0 1 6

PR

EV

IOU

S P

AG

ES

: S

AN

DIE

GO

AIR

& S

PA

CE

MU

SE

UM

; L

EF

T &

BO

TT

OM

RIG

HT:

CO

UR

TE

SY

OF

ER

IC S

IMO

NS

EN

; TO

P R

IGH

T: N

AS

A

At a time of great social upheaval, he did much to help keep good people in the U.S. Navy. He also came up with some ideas that occasioned a great deal of resistance within the service. Not least among these was the notion of building smaller, less-expensive aircraft carriers, which he dubbed sea control ships, equipped exclusively with verti-

By the 1970s many of the World War II–vintage Essex-class carriers that had been modified for

-ized missions were nearing the end of their opera-tional lives. Zumwalt believed they should be replaced by smaller, less sophisticated vessels than the huge nuclear-powered “super carriers” favored

insisted that eight of his sea control ships could be built for the price of one super carrier. He pointed

AS CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS FROM 1970 TO 1974, ADMIRAL ELMO ZUMWALT WAS AMONG THE MOST CONTROVERSIAL MILITARY OFFICERS OF HIS DAY.

PR SHOT Despite its futuristic look, the XFV-12A incorporated many components from existing aircraft.

out that the smaller ships would be ideal for tasks for which a giant carrier was not required, such as ASW, escorting convoys or providing air support to naval auxiliaries or amphibious support groups.

pretty closely the role of escort carriers during World War II. As reimagined 30 years later, how-

faster, more high-tech and much more expensive.

was to include light airborne multipurpose system

-

33AHM a r c h 2 0 1 6

What the Navy lacked was any sort of V/STOL

The obvious solution was the Hawker Siddeley -

American aerospace industry were opposed to the

-

All but two were rejected out of hand as unwork--

-

solely on the expectation that it would be the least

-

of all the proposals, since it was based on totally

blinds, were supposed to convert the exhaust into

to be fully VTOL capable and to reach a top speed -

airplane was tested on a tether for a few years, but

a lack of any foreseeable positive results, plans for a second prototype were canceled and the project

remains doubtful that it ever could have become

-ment, reconnaissance packs or external fuel tanks

THE XVF-12A SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN CHOSEN SOLELY ON THE EXPECTATION THAT IT WOULD BE THE LEAST EXPENSIVE TO BUILD.

TUNNEL VISION A Rockwell International engineer prepares a scale model of the XFV-12A strike fighter for wind-tunnel testing in 1974.

TETHERED TRYOUT The XFV-12A underwent years of bench-testing but never actually flew.

34 AH m a r c h 2 0 1 6

The runner-up in the VTOL competition, Con-vair’s Model 200, was never built because it was entirely new from the ground up, and therefore would have been much more expensive than the XFV-12A. It does, however, make an interesting case study of what was wrong with U.S. VTOL thinking during the 1970s. Resembling an F-106 Delta Dart with canards, the Convair 200 looked

relied upon two additional jet engines mounted vertically inside the fuselage, between the cockpit and the wings, a propulsion arrangement similar to that used in the Soviet Union’s operational but

dead weight of two inoperative jet engines. Addi-tionally, those two lift engines occupied a substan-tial amount of internal space that could otherwise have be used for fuel, armament or electronics.

It is interesting to note that Convair designed two separate versions of the 200 for the Navy—one

a tail hook and without the extra lift engines. The VTOL version’s gross weight was to have been

that the conventional plane would have been able

or electronics. By 1980, the Navy had abandoned the idea of

the sea control ship, due largely to the failure of

pressure from its aviation community to concen-trate on building more supercarriers. Meanwhile, however, Zumwalt’s brainchild was adopted else-where in the world. Italy’s Giuseppe Garibaldi fol-lows the sea control ship formula, as do Spain’s Principe de Asturias and Juan Carlos I. Spain has even built similar vessels for export: HTMS Chakri Naruebet for Thailand, and HMAS Canberra and Adelaide for Australia.

The Royal Navy’s Illustrious-class “through-deck cruiser” proved very successful during the 1982 Falklands War. In addition, the RN’s rapid and successful conversion of the container ship Atlantic Conveyor to accommodate Harriers and helicopters demonstrated that the WWII concept of modifying a merchant vessel into a viable escort carrier was still practicable. Nevertheless, the modern “brown shoe” U.S. Navy, still infatuated with its enormous supercarriers and showing little interest in convoy protection, has learned nothing from the success of foreign versions of the sea con-trol ship or the Atlantic Conveyor conversion.

War was that the VTOL Sea Harrier put up an

and Mirages. While the U.S. Navy continued to fault the Harrier—complaining that it was too

Britain, Spain, Italy, India and Thailand seemed to ex perience no problems operating it from their smaller carriers. And after a poor introduction to the McDonnell Douglas–built AV-8A Harrier,

CLEAR FOR ACTION Resembling an F-106 fitted with canards, the sleek Convair 200 looked the part of a Mach 2 fighter.

GO! Convair also designed a version of the 200 without lift engines for conventional carrier ops.

35AHM a r c h 2 0 1 6

ILLU

ST

RA

TIO

NS

: S

AN

DIE

GO

AIR

& S

PA

CE

MU

SE

UM

; AB

OV

E:

©2

013

LO

CK

HE

ED

MA

RT

IN C

OR

P.

the U.S. Marine Corps adopted the improved and enlarged AV-8B Harrier II, with 50 percent more fuel for greater range and loiter time. It has served with considerable success in numerous war zones, from Operation Desert Shield in 1990 to current

Despite the failure of the U.S. aerospace indus-try to develop a suitable VTOL strike fighter during the 1970s, American engineers have per-

with the Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning II, the STOVL version of the Joint Strike Fighter. The Marines declared initial operational capability for the F-35B in July 2015, when 10 aircraft in Marine

clearances. The RAF and RN plan to operate 138

replace the Italian navy’s ship-based Sea Harriers.While it represents state-of-the-art aeronauti-

cal technology, the F-35B still shares some of the

of the 1970s. Although the F-35B does not have additional lift jets, as did the Convair 200, it does include a large engine-driven lift fan that takes up just about the same proportion of internal space. Its operational weight is 10,000 pounds less than that of the corresponding conventional version of

the Lightning II, which means it will carry that much less military load.

Furthermore, while the F-35B is capable of a maximum speed of Mach 1.6—much faster than the Harrier—it is also much heavier. Although only about six feet longer, the F-35B weighs in at a hefty 32,300 pounds empty, 132 percent heavier than the Sea Harrier, and a whopping 30 tons loaded. Weight considerations aside, the Royal

of its carriers to withstand the F-35B’s jet blast, which has proved to be hotter and stronger than expected during vertical landings.

Despite its many detractors, the F-35B is sched-uled to soon enter service with several air arms around the world. Time will tell whether it will compare favorably to the Harrier, the only other

�

For further reading, Robert Guttman recommends: Convair Advanced Designs II (reviewed on P. 57), by Robert E. Bradley; and The World’s Worst Aircraft, by Jim Winchester.

THE VTOL SEAHARRIER PUT UP AN EFFECTIVE AIR DEFENSE AGAINST ARGENTINE SKYHAWKS AND MIRAGES.

THE FUTURE IS NOWMajor Richard Rusnok makes the first vertical landing of a production F-35B on March 31, 2013.