The Harrier Jump Jet: How Cold War Anxiety Inspired a Vertical Takeoff
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- čas přidán 4. 05. 2021
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The Lockheed AH-56 rigid rotor Cheyenne was the sort of fast attack helicopter you were hoping for. Sadly the project was scrapped. i.redd.it/a0x861rdqh351.jpg
do a video on the R-7/Soyuz/Vostok
10 CZcams channels, and now an insurance salesman as well.
Want a seriously sketchy VTOL craft? Check out the V22 osprey. I have personally almost died multiple times riding in the back of those pieces of absolute garbage.
@@WilbanksUSMC death traps
I’m a former harrier engineer, so watched this very excited. It got even better when I saw myself in the video.
Dude that's awesome
Waaow
Can you share the time tag
What time in the video?
It is amazing what you see. I was watching some videos on submarines and saw two pictures of my late brother re-enlisting on the sub. These were taken in the mid sixties on a sub that actually served in the Pacific during WW2. Good job on the jet. I was stationed in Brunswick NAS and got to see one of these. I worked on something less exotic, a P-3B.
You must have worked in the factory in Kingston then...
Can we get some love for the Harrier pilot who, running low on fuel while out to at sea, landed on a cargo ship like an absolute legend!?
It was not a full size ship as well , just a small coaster . Landed partly on a container and a van , brilliant work
@@MrTarmonbarry you are a legend for knowing that story too!
anyone watching this video about a military jet has probably saw that video atleast once in their lives. its like saying people watching top gun two has probably seen top gun one
@@m1a1abrams3 I hadn’t heard that story before
@@bradwatson2085 hence why i said “probably”. not 100% of ppl who will go see top gun 2 will have seen top gun 1
Sir Tom Sopwith founded Hawker who developed the Harrier (with Siddeley) and he lived to see his planes deal with the Kaiser, Adolf, Benito and Hirohito and then the Argentine Junta in 1982. What a life.
EdMcF1: I saw your comment and looked up Sir Tom. Sopwith lived to 101 years, he was lucky when and where he was born, but did he ever make the most of his time on earth. A guy who met the Wright brothers was still around to work on jet aircraft in the late 1970s. Amazing.
A biographics on sir Tom Sopwith would be amazing Simon
Made some very famous planes too such as the camel
Pretty sure “how Cold War anxiety inspired a vertical takeoff” could also be used to describe Simon’s youtube trajectory
That or how the guy who created Skunk Works dealt successfully with erectile disfunction pre Viagra...
🤣 cold War has done him all right!
That and the Roman Empire ;D
Perhaps these days the title could be sort of reversed as in “How Brexit inspired the vertical take-off of a second Cold War?” Oops politics, sorry! But at least that, er, Project is likely to provide Simon with plenty of material to easily cover him for the rest of his working life! A benefit - we have finally found one - hooray!
@@megaprojects9649 You know, the Roman Empire collapsed eh.....not what I'd be aspiring towards.....
Dunsfold airfield..... Surely the test pilot was the Stig.... Some say he has more CZcams channels than Simon and that if you ask him to cover a subject... He will. All we know is that we call him the Stig
My memory of the Harrier. A display for senior military officers from many countries hosted by the Royal Navy in the late seventies. The Harrier made a fast low level approach. Dumped speed and went into a hover. Turned slowly to face the audience. Bowed . Leant back and soared nearly vertical into the clouds. And that was just the beginning of an impressive flying display.
@Richard Lambert It still is. The US Marines plan on flying theirs for a few more years until the F-35 orders all come in.
Sometime in the 50s or 60s the US Air Force experimented with dog fighting between a helicopter gunship and a fighter jet. Their conclusion: it was "inconclusive" as to whether aircraft would have shot the other down. Despite the helicopter's comparatively slow speed, its ability to move on the x axis (up and down) at will meant the jet couldn't get a shot at the helicopter. For the helicopter possible engagement times were very narrow because of the speed of the jet. Accordingly, using guns alone neither could effectively engage the other. Of course with modern air-to-air missiles that abiulity to manoeverup and down wasn't going to help the helicopter survive. The missile would literally hit so fast the helicopter pilot simply wouldn't have a chance to react. Shooting in the other direction, apparently the copter's ability to chase the jet was nonexistent and that made engaging them with missiles difficult. On the other hand, a hovering helicopter provided a nice stable platform from which to launch missiles and gave the helicopter a little bit of advantage in that respect. Still, nowadays the smart money would be on the jet to win.
@@patrickscalia5088 Well, in the Gulf War of 91 helicopters were being blown out of the sky by A-10s using 30mm cannon shells, so real life = jets win.
@@RCAvhstape Well admittedly but it assumes a skilled pilot in the helicopter who knows what he's doing. Saddam's pilots were barely confident to get his helicopters off the ground, and like all technically inclined jobs worked under a murderous dictator they did NOT learn to think for themselves and they probably had no idea they were in danger until the helicopter started coming apart around them. In the Air Force studies the copter pilots knew what they wee up against and had already worked out strategies and like I said, the tests were -- and this is the word the Air Force used -- "inconclusive." It's not likely that Saddam's helicopter pilots would have ever put a scratch on the A10s but at the same time given a modicum of flying skill and -- most importantly -- some awareness of what they were up against, then yes they could probably have preserved themselves against the A10. A few of them anyway.
What it comes down to is that ANY of Saddam's pilots, whether in a helicopter or a MiG or for that matter a commander in a T72, for the skilled US and other coalition forces EVERYTHING Saddam deployed was like shooting fish in a barrel so it's not a valid comparison.
If you matched an A10 pilot against a well trained pilot in an Apache, or especially in a smaller recon helicopter like a Little Bird, the only way the A10 is going to score a hit is if he catches the copter hovering stationary or moving slowly and gets the element of surprise. Not sure what the controversy is with this because it's acknowledged that despite having no where near the conventional flying agility of say an F16, the Harrier would have been tough to dogfight and shoot down because of the Harrier's ability to hover and maneuver straight up and down on the X axis. Helicopters are even more agile in that respect.
@@patrickscalia5088 Harriers never hover in combat. Hovering is for vertical landings, only, and they can only do it for so many minutes before they run out of water for injection. They also never take off vertically except in air shows when they are lightly loaded. Operational takeoff from a ship is a rolling start with vectored nozzles. So I don't know where you are getting this stuff from. And if it's a Harrier vs. any helicopter, no matter how skilled the helo pilot, I wouldn't give two cents for that helo pilot's life. Harrier pilots have a 25mm cannon and trust me, they can shoot straight and hit their targets in one pass before the target even sees them coming.
Yeah that looks like its worth 7,000,000 Pepsi Points
This reference made me smile.
Ogbb
From the sounds of the video, Simon will not be liking your comment.
oh god
@@brettiup you know what he DOES like? People telling him he looks like Michael from Vsauce.
AM I RIGHT, PETER?
2:10 - Chapter 1 - S/VTOL
4:30 - Chapter 2 - NBMR-3
7:50 - Mid roll ads
9:05 - Chapter 3 - An engineering marvel
16:15 - Chapter 4 - Service
21:05 - Chapter 5 - Retirement
Seeing an aeroplane take off and land vertically is a sight I will never get tired of... It defines cool
Watching an F-35 hover was the most bizarre thing. It just doesn't look right
@@joshuapowell2675 "you're supposed to move in a line not stop on a dime!"
@@joshuapowell2675 And the F -35 uses a lot of ideas from the soviet VTOL , how unusual for America ))))
The technology for the VTOL version of the F35 came partly from, of all places, the Soviet Union. They'd designed a VTOL fighter plane that for reasons unknown never went past the testing stage, maybe because the USSR collapsed. Their jump-jet had that big fan right in the middle of the fuselage. Sometime in the 90s, if memory serves, Lockheed bought the patents for that vertical lift fan from the Russians, and the F35 got the big fan in the fuselage.
@@patrickscalia5088 Yes , the fan looks almost identical on the F35 as the Russian plane , did not know that Lockheed bought the patents though and very surprised that Russia did that
Worked on this plane for 18 years. Loved and hated her so much!
Do tell! What was it like?
I would imagine the linkage just to vector the thrust is crazy.
I did ordnance on the Harrier for four years and can confirm: loved and hated her
@@parandiac I worked avionics on the P3s. There was a lot with all the radios, radar and sensors for finding submarines.
@@jamesengland7461 well I did a total of 9 deployments with various Harrier units from land based to boat dets. The best were boats. Watching a her launch off the boat fully loaded using only 750ft of the deck then coming back Winchester and landing vertical.
The Spanish Navy performed a mini tour of the British airshow circuit in 2019 and was the Harriers first time on the UK airshow scene for a decade. The pilots couldn't believe just how big it was for us to see a harrier again after so long they said it was a career highlight to bring the harrier home
Loved the Harrier. I saw them in combat a few times. The first was during the Gulf War. Long story short, we (3rd Battalion 6th Marines) were attacked by three or four Iraqi T-72s. Within minutes two Harriers streaked in and destroyed the tanks. During the air war over Kosovo I was a platoon sergeant on the USS Nassau and the embarked Harriers flew daily strikes. As a contractor I saw the Marines SPMAGTF CR use Harriers to pound ISIS. It was a great aircraft and a friend to the Marine grunt. It was always where you needed it to be.
Has anyone else noticed that since Simon started business blaze that all other vids on his other channels have now got a more causal tone with small blaze style comments which i think really improves the learning experience since it make its more entertaining to learn :)
Yes I have noticed that as well.
Blaze Simon is in control... He's like Agent Smith in the last Matrix film - taking over everything!!
Allegedly...
That airfield was later used as the Top Gear test track. A Harrier flew the course in about half a minute. Compare that to Lewis Hamilton in a reasonably priced car at about one minute forty two seconds. Harrier may have been flown by The Stig. It started as an RCAF base in WWII. Canada!
nice lol
I was a US Marine ('87-'92), stationed at MCAS Cherry Point NC - attached to a Harrier Support Squadron, MAG-32. We serviced 5 Harrier Squadrons in the MAG. When I first got to Cherry Pt from Basic Training at Parris Island, I was checking into my duty station and heard a very loud noise in the sky. I looked up and saw a Harrier approaching the flightline coming in for landing. I'd never seen a plane fly so SLOW, almost as if levitating. I knew it was going to be a special assignment for my time in the Marine Corps. Amazing plane and the pilots who flew it had balls of steel. In real action, they flew very fast and very low. As soon as it was off the ground from a short TO they'd put the wheels up - less than 10' - 20' in the air, wheels up. The other branches' pilots flew with the wheels down until they were well in the air. Good times, then.
Semper fi..i did avionics for ace of spades but deployed with tigers 98-03
@@phettywappharmaceuticalsll8842 Semper Fi, DD. Ace of spades - I can't remember which sqdn that was (223, 231, 331, 542?), but I remember seeing it daily. I wanna say VMA-542 tho, unless they changed MAGs (possibly) or mascots (unlikely).....
One April Fools day we need a full MegaProjects about AirWolf
Have they done the death star yet? Then that'll be one for the year after. :)
DUUUUDE! That was the first one that popped in to my head. He did have the Dyson's Sphere, so why not do another theoretical one on supersonic helicopters.
Airwolf vs Blue Thunder video
1:06 Holy crap, that's the Top Gear test track!
I was just about to say that, glad I checked the comments first lol.
Yes , between Horshan and Dorking, You can see it as you drive between the two places
At an air show , a harrier jet stopped & hovered at about 50 foot .. probably 100 foot in front of the crowd , then slowly spun round ... even 30+ years later i can still smell & feel the wash of heat from the exhausts .. truly stunning
As an aviation buff, I love lots of aircraft, but I fell in love with the harrier after watching True Lies.
Fun fact: the Harrier in True Lies was a prop built for the film. In some shots it was hanging by a cable, in others it was in front of a green screen. The spinning turbine blades in the inlets were actually a CGI effect.
A great fun movie even beyond showcasing the Harrier.
"If I damage it, they can take it out of my pay."
"Dunsfold"
Everyone who's into cars: "well that seems familiar"
Title should be "how cold War anxiety inspired one of the sexiest jets ever"
One of the iconic memories of my childhood is watching the Harriers take off and land during the Falklands war on the news here in Australia.
Their work in the Falklands conflict was quite something. They were worth every penny we paid for them.
"I'm not allowed to say how many Harriers took part but I counted them all out and I counted them all back." Brian Hanrahan, BBC News ( on assignment during the Falklands conflict)
@@chrisvowell2890 I remember hearing it at the time . . . . quite something!
I remember the London to New York air race in 1969 and the iconic images of the Harrier taking off from the goods yard at Kings Cross station in central London, sweeping it clear of decades of dust and coal debris! It most certainly wouldn't be allowed today.
The Harrier was ahead of its time and remains an icon of late 50s British engineering excellence. Thank you for sharing this with us.
I can’t be the only one who just has their mind blown by how long aircraft remain in service. There’s jets and bombers and transporters and everything else that were designed and built in the 60’s and 70’s that are still being used today. Of course they’ve been updated and upgraded, but it’s still the same basic plane and that absolutely fascinates me and blows my mind. It’s just totally awesome and is a testament to the work that went in to the design and manufacturing. I love it.
ENGLISH ELECTRIC LIGHTING deserves a Megaprojects episode ..
So happy megaprojects are covering VTOL it’s such a cool advancement in aeronautics
I remember seeing one at an airshow when I was a kid and thinking, “This has got to be the best a jet will ever be.” Thank you Simon et al.
"Helicopters can't carry nearly as much weight or go nearly as fast as jets" - Clearly you need to do a megaprojects video on Airwolf.
I do believe that all the episodes of airwolf were in fact documentaries 😆
@@badmutherfunster "Historical Documents" just like Gilligan's Island!
@@scottthewaterwarrior I knew it,gilligans Island was an original 60's survival docu drama
@@scottthewaterwarrior by Grabthar's Hammer, you're right!
@@timwheeler8523 We shall bring back Airwolf. Never give up! Never surrender!
One of the loudest damn jets ever, but crazy cool at every air show I've seen one at.Thanks for sharing!
Get to work on these every single day for work. Work inside, outside, and in the cockpit. Worked on them in the Marines and continue to work on them as a civilian now. I love the Harrier!
Where are you working on them as a civilian? And which Marine squadron did you serve with?
My teacher was married to John Farley, who was a test pilot for the harrier, he came to out school to speak in assembly, this was around 1976/77 God I'm old!
Here's a grainy, old but mesmerising video of John Farley doing his thing in Harrier... czcams.com/video/P25OJtXmOfM/video.html
That would have been Farley's first wife Patricia.
I remember being in high school in the 70s and hearing classmates talk of the Harrier Jump Jet. We all said those British are cool as F coming up with something like that.
germans had the idea in ww2
@@paktahn
Correction, the germans build working supersonic jumpjets in the 60's befor the Harrier. ;D
@@mandernachluca3774 Lots of people built working prototypes because it was obviously a good idea... Only the Harrier proved to be practical however.
An all-time favourite of mine, but... they really should've stuck with "Kestrel." _Kestrels hover. It's like their entire thing._
What a fantastic aircraft, it certainly stunned the Argies when they came up against them and wiped the floor with them in the Falklands War in '82.... Not one of the deployed Harriers was lost in air to air combat. Mr Ralph Hooper, we salute you!!🇬🇧🇬🇧✌✌
I served as the navigator on the USS BATAAN (LHD 5) in 2003, and our two Harrier squadrons attacked Iraq on the morning of 20 March 2003, not Afghanistan. We had VMA-223 (the Bulldogs) and VMA-542 (the Bulldogs) flying off our flight deck for 10 hours a day (LHDs do not have the number of flight deck crewmen needed for 24 hour operations like a CVN). Our late sister ship had the night shift. We were, for all intents and purposes, CV-5 and CV-6 for that six week period. That was the most intense and professionally rewarding tour in my 20 years of commissioned service. R/Lieutenant Commander, U.S. Navy (retired), proud crewmember of the Mighty Bataan!
That must've been an amazing time to be part of that crew., I can only imagine the intensity of the operations you were all involved in. USS Bataan, definitely an aircraft carrier!! You had more Harriers on board than HMS Hermes during the Falklands war. All the best from Scotland Commander.
@@jacksprat9172 Thanks, mate! It was indeed intense, the most intense tour in my Navy career.
"Helicopters, they don't go that fast" - Simon
Me: Airwolf theme music starts playing inside head... :D
"It was a cold, dreary day in Surrey, England" So, a tuesday then? Honestly "it was a warm, dry day" is much more out of the ordinary XD
Harrier was one of the finest jets in cold war era. It ruled the skies in Falklands conflict.
I remember seeing Harriers at air shows in the 1970's when I was a kid. They used to come to a complete stop, rotate, bow to the audience, then take off at 600mph. Still the most amazing plane I've ever seen in person.
I dont think I will ever stop being impressed by the amount of amazing aircraft that came from such a small country.
As part to of your Cold War coverage you should do the M-16 program.
Just be sure to include the corruption, politics and the fact that it was a prime case of a second-rate product winning out through the corruption of 60's DC.
@@owenshebbeare2999 and don’t forget to smoke your daily dose of crack
@@owenshebbeare2999 you must be thinking of the M-14.
Maybe cover that the M-16 is not the AR-15 for the hoplophobes out there.
"Yes of course we're talking about the cold war again. Welcome to Megaprojects Ladies and Gentlemen.."
...In a nutshell
The gift that keeps on giving.
That's the thing about wars... they make megaprojects easier to justify.
Its a subject that will never run out of material for videos
Just be happy that it stayed a Cold War, I stood under a Soviet Recce Jet as it took photos of the NATO School in Oberammergau, I was literally underneath it and could clearly see the Hungarian Insignia.
By the time the German NATO Tornados turned up to chase him off he was probably back at his place swigging on a bottle of Vodka.
I lived there until the Iron Curtain came down and the Soviet jets used to come over 1982-83-84 etc almost every other day, or rather try to, this was the only successfull Jet that got so close that I saw it, whether any others broke through I have no idea, they were mostly intercepted over Austrian Airspace that was Neutral, or supposed to be.
The NATO jets came from Lager Lechfeld, just as they passed over the World Famous Wieskirche they hit the speed for their sonic booms, they flew over so often that the Church had to be renovated as the cracks were getting too big to be ignored.
Nobody remembers the real casualties of the Cold War, mostly car accidents or exercise deaths, the British Army had more casualities in Germany than they had in Northern Ireland!
"You've got "Clearance, Clarence". "Roger, Roger". "What's our vector, Victor"?
Nice
The 💩's gonna hit the fan......
The Harrier is, in effect, the true successor to the Spitfire as the iconic British fighter aircraft and, considering when it was first constructed, a world-beater ...... and it was only through Governmental intransigence that it wasn't developed further
As long as you're willing to put the Gloster Meteor in between the Spitfire and the Harrier, I can agree. It may have just been beaten by the Me.262 into operation, but the Meteor was the world's first jet fighter, and would continue to serve for over a decade despite the immense speed at which jet fighter technology developed between the end of World War II and the late '50s.
The harrier was a strike aircraft rather than a fighter. So the mosquito is possibly the better comparison rather than the spitfire.
I love these video types of videos. Reminds me of the Farnborough Airshow in the 90s at the fence line. Also reminds me of that Simpson episode quote: "The pride of the United States Marine Corps: The British Made Harrier Jump Jet!" Or something like that! 🤣
An airfield in Dunsfold, Surrey...
Seems familiar...
The best airstrip... In the world.
@@xKrispyx you are a genius
Some say the airfield is cursed by the sound of screeching tires and a mysterious figure in all white is seen in the shadows
In 1983, as a young Airman in the US Air Force, I was standing about 30 meters away from one of these as it took off, rotated around and flew into the distance. It was such a great aircraft.
A rather grand friend lived in a house on a hill overlooking the Dunsfold test airfield. You'd be sitting there having tea and then suddenly one of these things would rise above the trees at the bottom of the garden - it was magnificent! She didn't mind the noise she said, the spectacle was more than compensation.
I think for a cool mega project is if you wanted to go over the development of HMS Dreadnought and Dreadnoughts in general. How they evolved into the modern idea of a battleship and how HMS Dreadnought caused a revolution in capitol ship development.
That moment you get a notification for a new episode and there are only 7 views but already 13 likes when you start watching. Man I love these video's!
Keep it up Simon!
Looked round an old Harrier in an Aircraft Museum once and found most of the cockpit held together with duct tape. Such a cool plane, and so British. Love it!
Dunsfold... I can hear Clarkson saying " and coming out of Gambon... the Stig"
"Perfect weather for a takeoff." - Surry air control
"But it's just above freezing and the fog is thick as soup sir!" - Surry provisional youth (trainee)
"Security! This child isn't British!" - S.A.C.
"CURSE YOU BRITS!" - S.P.Y.
To see an AV8B takeoff vertically up close is to know how awesome it really is. Four thrust nozzles pivot down & the Pegasus turbofan winds up to an earsplitting scream, you can feel the heat a good 200ft. away while this big bastard jet rises straight up into the sky. It's just bonkers.
The Top Gear track is the sight for one of the most iconic test flights....... .... ... ... In the world!
Could you do a video on the F18 Super Hornet?
"Secret flight testing facility" So secret in fact that they shoot the most watched car show in the world there. Great job being tight-lipped, RAF.
"Nothing to see here. Look at those cars over there. Ooooh, shiny"
Oooooooooh
Anyway
It was secret back then not now XD
Some say that he got into the habit of wearing helmets while testing Harrier prototypes, and that he got kicked out of the RAF for only taxiing around the airfield at very high speeds.
All we know, he's called The Stig!
@@crowttubebot3075 I love you lol
My good friend's dad was a USMC Harrier pilot during Desert Storm, one of very few.
I remember seeing the Harriers and Sea Harriers on the news during the Falklands War then later the US Marines using them in Desert Storm. They used to build them near my house. 👍
the little chuckles i get from these are 10/10. dont' stop
damn the navy's sea harriers always get forgotten when talking about the falkands, they got 23 kills to 0 air to air losses
Simon doesn't spend enough time on that episode in their life. They were simply outstanding there.
Sharkey Ward is a legend.
To be fair, they were taking on Argentine jets that were at the end of their combat range and couldn't afford the fuel to engage in a dog fight.
And yes, the Harrier pilots did a heroic job. Although the F-15 Eagle has an even better track record of 102-0-0.
SEE: migflug.com/jetflights/the-combat-statistics-for-all-the-aircraft-currently-in-use/
@@ScottLongwellR Honestly, the real decider between the Royal Navy jets and the Argentine was the level of skill of the pilots. All is fair in love and war though, I mean many F-15 kills have not been against completely peer level trained and equipped forces either. The F-15 is an exceptional bit of kit, with great pilots, I'm certainly not denying that. To compare their relative score sheets is somewhat unfair however because of the numbers in which the F-15 has been used in warzones since its inception relative to that of the Sea Harrier and it's roles in those wars.
@@willsabri4815 I get a kick out of the same people who before the combat kicked off were saying how the battle hardened Iraqis would kick American butt, then after the combat ends they say "yeah, but they were a little country, you'd never beat a near peer nation"
So cool that Simon gets super stoked abouyt such a greatly written intro to a video !
I had no idea that the harrier had so many combat hours under its belt. Truly a testament to its revolutionary design and utility. When you take a look at the F-35 you can see the strong resemblance from the harrier design. A relatively small jet with a versatile range of roles capable of VTOL cruise & super sonic abilities. Even the recent F-35 issues with engine oscillation -> roll issues harken back to the harriers early teething issues.
One of the best Mega Projects videos yet. Thank you for highlighting this amazing aircraft!
22:09 That's a Panavia Tornado, also a european jet with a cool name and one of my favourites. Possibly the subject for another video? :)
Keep up the good work, Simon!
I came to check for someone mentioning this before I did it myself. Absolutely love the Tonka - a sweep wing icon.
Will you do the A10 warthog?
I second and third this. The A-10 is my favorite bird
That's my gal...used to work on the Pegasus 406/408. Beast of an engine. (18,000-24,000lbs of thrust and about 2 tons dry weight) (AV-8B II Plus). Theory of operation = suck, squeeze, bang, blow.
In 1979 I was a young Marine Corporal with HMA-169 (AH-1T Cobras) at Camp Pendleton CA. Got sent out to 29 Palms (Stumps) for 2 weeks for a combined arms training exercise On the last day there we had a Marine Harrier buzz our area of the expeditionary airfield. He did a couple of passes and then hovered in front of us. He did a few slides left and right. As he was starting to lift up to leave we suddenly heard a loud cough and saw smoke and engine parts come out the nozzles. He dropped liked a stone, putting the front landing gear strut into the plane. Heard later it was the XO of the Harrier Squadron and that he had broken his nose when the plane hit. Never heard if he got into any trouble for showboating.
I'll NEVER forget the first time I saw a Harrier hovering in real life.
I'll NEVER forget how loud that darn thing was while hovering...
My father, a WW-2 pilot, worked a civilian job at the Norfolk naval airstation. One day in the early 70's, as I recall, he came home all excited and bursting his shirt
to tell us about something he saw out the window during the day. He had seen an airplane not only hovering but moving slightly backward appear from behind a hangar, which the Harrier could do. He had a hard time wrapping his head around
that one.
I saw one at an air show in Atlantic City a few years ago, it was stupid cool! Previously the closest I had gotten was flying the Hydra in GTA San Andreas.
"Thankfully, we're past that time"
That aged like fine milk :D
I saw one of these take off in person. Even with hearing protection, from about 500 feet distance it was the loudest noise I've ever experienced.
That Lake District testing you talk of - we have it mainly in WALES! It's called the Mach Loop. Minutes before I started watching this video, 2x F15s flew over us.
If you ever wanted to make a movie of the Mach Loop, let me know. I've got great tips and places to get amazing photos and videos...
Be well!
"HARRIER FIGHTER 7,000,000 PEPSI POINTS."
Alright! Love this jet!
Another great video Simon and staff
I was an adult when I saw my first Harrier at an airshow. I STILL get goosebumps when I see one take off, even if it's just on a video.
Harrier is like tomcat. A special aircraft that was too of it's class in it's time.
The marines called it VIFFING (Vectoring In Forward Flight). The small wing gave very high wing loading rendering the Harrier a bit of a clod in a maneuvering dog fight. Point those nozzles down though and oh baby WATCH THAT BITCH TIGHTEN UP in the turns!!!
Harrier VIFFing
czcams.com/video/8UE9i82Kc_Y/video.html
17:41 'the rest of the Royal Navy's fleet' there were two Harriers used, the Navy's Sea Harrier which was the British 'fighter' in the Falklands War, and the RAF Harriers, which were used in ground attack roles (much to the pilots chagrin).
Sir Stanley Hooker the engineer who was closely involved in most of the UK jet propulsion wrote in his autobiography that contrary to what many people think, it was not entirely a British project. In fact the entire project was nearly still born until the US Marine Corps stepped in at the start of the program and laid out their specifications and requirements. They put enough money and orders in to revive the program for their needs and only then did the UK consider entering the program and buying them. Sir Stanley Hooker is clear. The initial engineering was Hawker-Siddeley but it was the USMC involvement that eventually lead to the successful aircraft.
Without the funding from the US taxpayer via the MWDP, the Kestrel and Harrier likely wouldn't have made it past the drafting table.
ah yes the beautiful harrier
Hell yes the harriers ,the only good part of the movie "Battlefield Earth" there was a scene in the movie where the humans were hovering in a building
You should do a video based on Fairchild Republic A-10 Warthog
I've heard of the flipping issue before, and always wondered why they didn't install something like a grate on aircraft carries, lets the plane land but keeps the turbulence to a minimum?
That is a grate idea!
Used to love watching the jets roar above us or behind us midway through a hike.
We were in kielder forest & were greeted by a training battalion. Chinooks with apc's underneath, tanks, trucks and so on. Was an amazing sight to see as a child.
The bit at 22:16 where he describes the thinking behind the Harrier as "Even if we lose we're going to make sure you can't win." perfectly describes all of the cold war thinking. It truly was MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction, a perfect acronym if there ever was one.
A small correction about the operation of the jet: The two forward nozzles on the Harrier are technically not exhaust, they are compressor discharge. The Pegasus engine was built with a far larger compressor stage than it needed to be a pure turbojet, so not all of the air goes through the core (combustion section) of the engine. In fact about 60% of the total intake air was directed out of the forward two vectored thrust nozzles, after going through the initial low pressure compressor stage. The remaining 40% of the intake air is used by the core of the engine and subsequently out of the rear two vectored thrust nozzles.
In a way, the Pegasus engine was a fore-runner of modern turbo-fan engines, which create the majority of their thrust (up to 80% for high bypass ratio turbofans) from the giant fan at the front of the engine, which blows large volumes of air around the outside of the engine at a low velocity compared to the smaller volume, high velocity turbojet thrust created by the core. When a Harrier is in level flight with all the thrust nozzles directed backwards, the engine is essentially operating as a low bypass (1.5:1 ratio) turbofan.
In defense of English weather, I’ve been there four times and it was bright and sunny, each time. But to be fair, each park that we drove past had pale, shirtless people laying around all over the place. That made it charming, really. 🤣
Those parks were full of pale shirtless people because that was the first (and possibly the last) day of sun we'd seen that year... 🤣
Pale is the best way to be.
Love the harrier, my favorite military aircraft of the cold war. It was unusual and it served with distinction well beyond it's original design. = A job well done.
Proud to say that I worked on the HUD unit for various iterations of the mighty Harrier for almost 40 years.
Another aircraft video 😌💖
Only £49.99 in war thunder 😂
It's 59.99
American*
@@ibDirtyGlasses ye
As a kid I grew up with my grandfather working at Rockwell as a engineer and he worked on the B-1 project while it was in development, I got to attend several different special air shows, like I got to see the F-117 before it was officially announced to the public. But the Hairier was and still is my absolute favorite jet ever, when I joined the U.S. Marine Corps it was amazing to watch them take off and seeing them in different theaters.
Served as a Harrier mechanic with VMA-311 in the USMC. Great video. I really enjoyed it.
When America buys your aircraft you know you’ve done really good work.
It's amazing how different the harrier and f35 really are. They say a monkey can hover the f35. Where the harrier is like balancing it on a pencil.
that means the f35 has better engineering surely
Worked on the A version Harrier in the early 1970s. In the Marine Corps. Latter I became A US Naval Aviator. Your brief video is pretty good with no glaring faults. In the early years engines were changed out every 250 hours of flight time,,, ouch.
Another great video Simon.
My uncle was a Marine Corp Harrier pilot. He said that the guys referred to it as "The Microwave" for its propensity for killing its pilots.
*corps
Yea it wasn't mentioned that although the Harrier is a wonderful and innovative airplane it did kill a lot of pilots over the years. It is difficult to take-off and land vertically.
We called them "North Carolina lawn darts", lol.
@@garymartin9777 unfortunately the Marines didn't adopt the training methods the RAF used. Pilots were first given helicopter training before converting to Harriers. The RAF had a low accident rate by comparison.
@@alanjm1234 Most of the Marine pilots who transitioned to the AV-8A during the early stage of the program were rotary winged pilots. That changed.
Conspiracy Theory: Simon is secretly paid by Pepsi
Thanks for slowing down I could understand you in this video
Brilliant Simon! Good Job Team.