Harrier Farewell

Lev67

Lev67

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Neil
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My one and only visit to Cottesmore.
What a place! Gutted I left it til the end to visit.
As already said, quiet morning in the gloom but it kicked off just before 14.00. Total mayhem :Yahoo!:
Some cracking stuff to be had.
The Harrier in the Hover next to us was Awesome.
Here's a very small sample from ZG506

#1

ZG506 by Lev_67, on Flickr

#2

ZG506 by Lev_67, on Flickr
 
Stunning Neil. You going tomorrow? I am with a couple of lads.

Kev.
 
More photo opportunities in Linconshire as the harriers will do a fly around the county between 1pm and 2pm according to BBC news.
 
First just makes me think top gun, I love it. The second, though, is simply awesome, different class. I like them all, but those first two just because they are unusual.
 
Superb Gary.. love that second one..
 
Stunning set looks like you choose the better day from what I have seen on the news today. Just wish my leg had not F*'ed up as I wanted to go before the end.
 
Good photos lads ...

im watching the skies in Hull area .... hopefully i will see them in formation :)
 
loving the second one especially............

there are so many things i would get rid of before i even considered the harriers........
 
heard some jets around here today but don't know if they were harriers
were labour going to decommission them or is it this governments decision.
 
Neil,
(y) Love the first set, tells the story very well. also well captured i would have loved to have been there, a real privlage.
With exception to the Mosquito, The Harrier is my fav, a very sad day to loose such an important aircraft, still able to achieve something that no other aircraft can. Makes one wonder whats next...

Thank for sharing the pics..
 
From what I've heard from 'light blue' sources, including some who actually work as ground crew on them, the airframes are coming to the end of thier useful lives. One friend who was a 'groundie' on these for many years said he'd never consider flying in one as he knew how tatty and aged they're getting despite external appearances.
If we 'kept' them, it'd have to be the AV-8B Harrier II variant built for the USMC in the USA by McDonnell-Douglas under licence (and also flown by the Spanish and Italian navies) and there just isn't the money since 'we' spent everything on the useless bloody Typhoon instead...
The USMC has already upgraded theirs twice in the lifetime of our Harriers which have had avionics and other upgrades including those incorporated in the 'Improved Harrier-Harrier II Programme' but remain essentially the same aircraft as they were nearly 30 years ago.
The last airframes were delivered to the USMC in December 2003. None have been built since then.

Also there's no real need for it's VSTOL capability. It's vertical take-off capability has never been used in Combat...ever.
The RAF is leaning hard towards UAV drone capability for CAS missions as a Predator-type UAV can do everything a Harrier can do at a fraction of the cost and at at zero risk to the crew.
In the Gulf war the USMC lost 60% more Harriers to SAMs than other types as the heat-signature of the Pegasus engine cannot be effectively masked - also the built-in 'redundancy' enjoyed by more modern aircraft is sadly lacking in the Harrier - if you hit it hard with a cricket-bat you'll pretty much kill it.

Also it's expensive - expensive to run and expensive to maintain compared to other aircraft.
5263829427_294183280c_b.jpg


It's time to roll the credits on this one.
I love watching them, same as I love watching Hawker Typhoons, Tempests, Supermarine Spitfires. E.E. Lightnings and Hawker Hunters.
I wouldn't really want them flying CAS for me though...
 
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Wow Arkady,

Way to go on spouting half-baked nonsense!
The Harriers have just been through an update program; I'm afraid your groundie mate was talking rubbish!

We wouldn't need to buy new airframes and if we did it would be from BAE Systems, not Boeing (they consumed MD years ago). The Harrier was lifed to 2025 so had plenty of flying time left. Your point about the USMC upgrade program is such a warped view of the truth that you should hang up your Nikon and become a politician. In basic terms the AV-8B is the Harrier GR5 (the AB-8B+ is a GR5 with an AI radar). You'll notice that the venerable GR5 has been through upgrade programs taking it to GR7, GR7a, GR9 etcetera. To suggest that our aircraft hadn't been upgraded would be a deception!

I agree that the VTOL capability is not required, but not about VTOL never being used in combat, remember that all the landings back onto the carriers in Corporate were vertical landings, additionally the Q stood from 'Sids Strip' on the Falkland Islands utilized STOVL. What you were probably trying to articulate was a fact that the Vectoring In Forward Flight (VIFF) was never used in combat.

I'm interested in your view on the 'bloody useless Typhoon'. I imagine that this is because it hasn't dropped a bomb in anger. This is a classic, short sighted view that many have when they confuse the current conflict with the future of conflict. I imagine that your views would be different if an opponent that you were fighting had a credible air threat, you might be please to have an AMRAAM/ASRAAM laden Typhoon keeping the hostiles CAS at bay.

The Predator carries the sum total of 2 ATGMs, I'm pretty sure that a Harrier can carry more than that. Additionally a Pred can achieve approximately 1/5th 1/4 the speed of a Harrier meaning that the jet responds quicker to the request for CAS.

The vulnerability to IR SAMs also makes the jet a bitch to lock onto with an IR AAM. In terms of redundancy, I assume that you mean it has only 1 engine, consider the F35 ......

If you hit any modern ac with a cricket bat you'll damage it, yes even the Typhoon flown by the vain officer types of the RAF and the Apache flown by those gritty, down to earth Army heroes.

Accept this with a bit of tongue in cheek. A mate who fixes Harriers and access to Wikipedia doesn’t necessarily constitute the whole truth.

Personally, I never cared for the Harrier but some of the best pilots I've met coming through my Sqn have gone to that jet.


A sad day for the RAF and Defence as a whole.


Cheesy
 
Cheesy said:
Wow Arkady,

Way to go on spouting half-baked nonsense!
The Harriers have just been through an update program; I'm afraid your groundie mate was talking rubbish!

We wouldn't need to buy new airframes and if we did it would be from BAE Systems, not Boeing (they consumed MD years ago). The Harrier was lifed to 2025 so had plenty of flying time left. Your point about the USMC upgrade program is such a warped view of the truth that you should hang up your Nikon and become a politician. In basic terms the AV-8B is the Harrier GR5 (the AB-8B+ is a GR5 with an AI radar). You'll notice that the venerable GR5 has been through upgrade programs taking it to GR7, GR7a, GR9 etcetera. To suggest that our aircraft hadn't been upgraded would be a deception!



I agree that the VTOL capability is not required, but not about VTOL never being used in combat, remember that all the landings back onto the carriers in Corporate were vertical landings, additionally the Q stood from 'Sids Strip' on the Falkland Islands utilized STOVL. What you were probably trying to articulate was a fact that the Vectoring In Forward Flight (VIFF) was never used in combat.

I'm interested in your view on the 'bloody useless Typhoon'. I imagine that this is because it hasn't dropped a bomb in anger. This is a classic, short sighted view that many have when they confuse the current conflict with the future of conflict. I imagine that your views would be different if an opponent that you were fighting had a credible air threat, you might be please to have an AMRAAM/ASRAAM laden Typhoon keeping the hostiles CAS at bay.

The Predator carries the sum total of 2 ATGMs, I'm pretty sure that a Harrier can carry more than that. Additionally a Pred can achieve approximately 1/5th 1/4 the speed of a Harrier meaning that the jet responds quicker to the request for CAS.

The vulnerability to IR SAMs also makes the jet a bitch to lock onto with an IR AAM. In terms of redundancy, I assume that you mean it has only 1 engine, consider the F35 ......

If you hit any modern ac with a cricket bat you'll damage it, yes even the Typhoon flown by the vain officer types of the RAF and the Apache flown by those gritty, down to earth Army heroes.

Accept this with a bit of tongue in cheek. A mate who fixes Harriers and access to Wikipedia doesn’t necessarily constitute the whole truth.

Personally, I never cared for the Harrier but some of the best pilots I've met coming through my Sqn have gone to that jet.


A sad day for the RAF and Defence as a whole.


Cheesy
Click to expand...

i thought viffing HAD been used in falklands.i was a school kid then but i read somewhere it had been used.

just googled and found this.perhaps this is what caused my confusion....

"While VIFFing does exist, its use in the Falklands was an invention of some
newspaper, based on talking to pilots who were not actually in the action.

Sea Harrier pilots who were involved are unanimous that VIFFing was NOT used
in the Falklands. There simply wasn't any reason to use it, since the
Argentine fighters never maneuvered aggressively enough to put the Harriers
on the defensive."
 
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Cheesy said:
Wow Arkady,

Lots of stuff

Cheesy
Click to expand...

My information sources are no doubt not as comprehensive as your own, but my argument stands.
My perspective as a ground-hugger is perhaps different from yours - you may or may not have a vested interest in keeping an obsolete manned aircraft flying, but in my opinion the money could be better spent elsewhere.

Such as on equipment we need now as opposed to some notional future battlespace whereby handsome and ruggedly windswept pilots duel to the death in fast-fighter-jets in idyllic blue-skied single-combat.

We need CAS now: all the fast-jets I saw in Afghan flying 'reassurance patrols' merely stooged around then buggered off when their fuel ran out, at which point Terry opened up again.
Oh and they were Dutch F-16s - I never saw a UK zoomie...not since '06 when we did have Harrier deployed there...
UAV can at least loiter for the entire period of an operation at a fraction of the cost of maintaining any fast jet.

I'd even rather have a few old Skyraiders or Bushmasters to hand than Typhoon...

"Creditable Air Threat" - that'll be North Korea then, cause no-one else has one or is ever likely to either - and since it's mighty unlikely we'll go against them unsupported by the US, let them buy all the fast jets and let us buy the stuff we can afford and actually need.

The Battle of Britain was great Cheesy, your boys did us proud. No question about it - none of us would be here were it not for them.

But it's ancient History. Time to move on. The UK doesn't need an independent fast-jet capability any more than it needs an independent nuclear one.
 
Great photos. It's a real shame that these wonderful aircraft are being taken out of service.
 
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