Where did this aircraft get this nickname from?
It was marketed as VTOL or STOVL.
It can takes off vertically, which is cool and beans, but it isn’t really jumping.
Does the moniker come from its carrier based antics with the Royal Navy where the aircraft shot off the platform and up a ramp where it bounced into the air unassisted by a steam catapult.
Does the USMC refer to the AV8B as a “Jump Jet”
Enquiring minds wish to know.
This site seems to support the Royal Navy explanation.
If I leap upwards in a vertical fashion, I call it jumping. What do you call it?
I can see what you mean but if you watch one take off ‘jumping’ doesn’t spring to mind.
Floating, raising, hovering, levitating et’al are more synonymous with what it’s actually doing.
If that is why it was given the nickname then so be it.
Additionally, the Sea Harrier didn’t enter service until 1980. It was a Jump Jet long before that.
Perhaps the ‘jump’ is not a literal interpretation of the aircraft action, but rather it’s an operational description.
In other words you can have a forward base of operations (compared to other aircraft that require a runway) and you can ‘jump’ the time needed for refuelling, operational mantenance etc.
Bear in mind that it was intended as a ground attack role, it means that it can work like a chopper as backup for ground forces and can quickly jump in, instead of having to fly maybe 50 miles or much more.
The ‘ski lift’ was invented far later