The Harrier’s a helluva lot faster than a helo, but nowhere near as fast as most jets.
“You want precision, you call a Cobra. You want somebody that can stick around forever, you call an A-1 Skyraider. You want fast response, you call an F-4 Phantom. You wan’t 'em really, really dead you call an Arc Light.”–my dad, ex Green Beret radioman. (Arc Light= 3 fully loaded B-52s)
I was going to say “Because they crash a lot” but I think Sam Stone kinda covered this.
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- The main problem with using vectored jet thrust for powered lift is that it makes overall fuel-efficiency very poor, in particular for supersonic flight (the Harrier is not supersonic). The Brits intended originally to overcomme that problem, but abandoned the original research project before they did so. The program was started in 1956, the first aircraft flying under its own power in 1960. The research program was ended in 1965, with the first production aircraft entering RAF service in 1969. The research program was resumed in 1975 (in the hopes of generating foreign sales interest), and in 1985 an engine with afterburners mounted in each rear nozzle doubled the thrust, but it used too much fuel and was thought to be impractical.
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- Using a single ducted engine, as the Harrier does, is actually about the simplest way of doing things, but it isn’t the only way. Powered lift aircraft can be divided into many different classes: helicopters, tilt rotors, stopped rotors, vectored thrust (Harriers are this), vectored thrust w/lift engines (no current examples), direct lift/lift+lift cruise (no current examples), flow-switching aircraft (no current examples), and tail-sitters (no current examples, experimental only AFAIK).
- As to “why don’t all aircraft do this” it should be noted that proportionately speaking, powered lift aircraft have killed much more than their fair share of test pilots.
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- Also note that the nature of modern aircraft missions is changing, as a consequence of sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles. - MC
Just to point out the most obvious benefit of Harrier technology: They don’t need runways / landing strips. While that doesn’t seem quite so important since the Cold War ended it was a major ‘upside’ when the Eastern Bloc military threat was at it’s most potent. If all your airfields for a 1,000 mile radius are knocked out it could have been quite handy for the ground troops to have fast reaction and heavy duty air to ground support pop up out of a forest clearing.
I think it’s a little difficult comparing Harriers to other types of military aircraft (planes or heliocopters) as it’s non-runway role was unique. It was designed to do a job no other plane could do so, in consequence, any straight comparison is tricky.
I work at Lockheed martin, and the new Joint Strike fighter will be able to do vertical takeoff stuff(at least one variation of it will). Instead of using the jet it uses a big fan driven by the jet turbine. that way it doesnt burn anything next to it like the harrier. Boeing is working on a similar (but uglier) aircraft.
Hey, me too! I’m waving my hands; can you see me? :D:D
Nope, missed it. Im looking now, try again. what area/city do you work in?
This is what a Harrier does…
-Conduct close air support using conventional and specific weapons.
-Conduct deep air support, to include armed reconnaissance and air interdiction, using conventional and specific weapons.
-Conduct offensive and defensive antiair warfare. This includes combat air patrol, armed escort
missions, and offensive missions against enemy ground-to-air defenses, all within the capabilities of
the aircraft.
-Be able to operate and deliver ordnance at night and to operate under instrument flight conditions.
-Be able to deploy for extended operations employing aerial refueling.
-Be able to deploy to and operate from carriers and other suitable seagoing platforms, advanced bases,
expeditionary airfields, and remote tactical landing sites.
The AV8B Harrier can fly at almost Mach 1 and has a range of 900 nautical miles. It’s single Rolls Royce engine needs to put out 22,800 pounds of thrust for the Harrier to do what it does.
“Harrier” or VSTOL technology seems to be good for the military right now as the US has ordered 73 more Harriers. Applying this technology to commercial aircraft would be inefficient and expensive… and just how many average “Joes” could afford to drive one of these bad boys?
I believe the latest Northrop F-twentysomething air superiority fighter is planned to incorporate a limited thrust-vectoring sytem. However, it merely deflects the rear exhaust slightly to allow the aircraft to make extremely tight maneuvers in the vertical plane. Great for dodging an incoming missile, but it’s not a VTOL-type of thrust-vectoring.
One great reason why the Harrier has been around as long as it has is because it has the ability to operate away from vulnerable airfields. This was a major concern during the Cold War, when the survivability of NATO airfields was considered to be marginal at best. Since a Harrier can be stationed almost anywhere relatively flat and clear of obstruction, it has a higher on-ground survivability and a potentially better response time. Those advantages far outweigh the many liabilities that VTOL/STOL aircraft have.
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- I’d argue with that: the reason the Harrier has been around so long is because nobody else bothered to try to develop a better true VTOL jet aircraft, because in practice their advantages are extremely limited to a very narrow (modern) battlefield situation, “modern” being the key word here. Being able to operate from remote airfields turned out to be not of much use, as remote airfields often don’t have the mechanical support or refueling supply capability (hence the aerial refueling boom, it didn’t have that originally) and that’s not going to change anytime soon. The reason a site is considered “remote” is its lack of support!
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- The US military could require that all new aircraft have VTOL capability but they don’t because there are more important considerations like loiter time, armament capacity and stealth capability. The Harrier does poorly on all three counts; it was intended as a “crossover” vehicle between a helicopter and a jet, and serves neither role very well.
- I am willing to bet that the next US frontline fighter will have short-take-off features, but will not be a VTOL. - MC
The Harrier has two main variants in the UK: GR (ground attack / reconnaissance) and the Sea Harrier FRS (naval fighter / reconnaissance).
A V/STOL aircraft fitted Britain’s requirements of the 1970s and early 1980s for two main reasons. Given that British airfields would be prime (and accessible) targets for Soviet airstrikes and missile attacks, the Harrier GR models had the handy ability to operate from forward airbases – i.e. using temporary shelters and autobahns as STOL runways, resupplied by road. With much of NATO’s Cold War planning relying on air superiority compensating for smaller land forces, having ground attack aircraft that close to the front line (with a faster turnaround time) was a definite plus. Making it harder to hit their airbases (or at least diverting more Soviet aircraft to finding the makeshift airstrips) also increased the chances of their making a definite contribution.
Secondly, Sea Harriers are not great fighters. However, they fitted the bill for a half-decent fighter to be carried on the small, primarily ASW Invincible-class carriers that the Royal Navy had (and still has). F-14s would have been very nice, but the Royal Navy didn’t have the ships or the budget to build ships to carry them.
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*Originally posted by MC *
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Nope, the requirement for the Joint strike fighter, which is the next one coming up, is that it is vtol. Lockheed, and boeing both have versions of it built, and they will be flying here in the next few weeks. Then it is up to the government to decide which one of the two designs gets to be built, but either way, you lose the bet. I’ve seen the pictures of both, in fact, I work as an NT admin supporting the JSF team at Lockheed, so I get to see stuff on this every day.
Couple of details:
The Harrier has become something of a niche aircraft; outside of the RAF and the USMC, it’s essentially sold to navies who do not have the budget for a modern full-size Aircraft Carrier capable of launching modern full-size tactical fighters. So this is the fighter for Britain, Spain, Italy and India (Brazil is holding on to its conventional carrier for the time being, but flies no fighters off of it). The USMC want it, of course, so they can have some cover based right at or near the beach; the RAF’s reasons have been discussed.
True V/STOL thru vectored thrust like the Harrier’s requires a lot of engineering; the cost, power/weight ratio and fuel efficiency is such that it can’t be operated except at a loss: thus, an exclusively military application (also, I believe it has a scalability problem: all models of Harrier are single-engine)
Vectored thrust itself, OTOH, has become widely welcome as a way to boost maneuverability in conventional fighters (F-22s, e.g.)
The other VTOL alternative is the tilting-rotor Osprey, basically a smallish transport airplane that can rotate its propellers to the vertical in order to hover. And that has proven one tricky bastard to get operational.
- Nope, not if I found the same program you’re speaking of. The website
http://www.jast.mil/
says that the US Air Force and Navy want a conventional aircraft (the Navy model is specified with stronger landing gear and an arresting hook, no mention of any VTOL capability is made). Only the Marines is insisting on a STO/VL aircraft, and it only has to be able to hover and land vertically carrying no load, which I will even bet that it will just b-a-r-e-l-y be able to accomplish without damage. Sooner or later they’ll tell pilots only to use vertical landing in an energency. - MC
Wow, after reading all these responses, it seems to me that having a Harrier in your fleet would be more trouble than it’s worth. The negatives would outweigh the positives. The way I look at it now, the Harrier is, essentially, a helicopter that can fly fast and has greater range.
Would having an Apache, instead of the Harrier, be more effective? I know it lacks in the aforesaid areas, but as MC has mentioned, the aerial refueling abilty would tackle the range problem. The only other real issue would be speed, right?
Are the two aircraft’s top speeds significantly different? I mean, that much different to warrant a military to invest in a whole fleet of Harriers, with problems abound, as opposed to many more Apaches, with far fewer problems.
Or am I just talking out of my ass here? 
Well vandal, from a British point of view, it most certainly is not more trouble than it’s worth. We cannot afford full size carriers and the small mini carriers are simply not big enough to launch normal take off aircraft. Hence the most cost effective solution all round is vtol/stol if we want to be able to support forward forces without static land based airfields. And I don’t think there’s a helicopter in the world which flies faster than a harrier can, although I suppose I could be wrong.
More Aircraft will be. Boeing just won the contract to build a new Joint Strike Fighter using STOVL
http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/military/jsf/
Its going to be a multi purpose aircraft, with several versions being made. one of which will be required to do vtol. It uses a new system that uses a fan, not like the harrier which uses the jet, and the idea is to use smaller carriers that will only acomadate this kind of plane. They are currently using harriers for this now, so it is basically to replace the harrier. They would have to junk that whole concept if they told their pilots to only use it in an emergency. They are pretty set on this, so thats not going to happen. TLC did a special on the other day.
NO, they did not win the contract. They are competeing for the contract, as is lockheed. their version just flew its first flight, ours will in a week or two. ours will win.
For those interested, here is a link to some detail on how the new stovl will work(on ours)
http://www.lmco.com/news/archives/pdf/JSF.pdf
heres what the plane looks like
http://www.lmco.com/files3/lmtoday/0007/13.html
Heres the “Large mouth bass” plane that boeing is working on
http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/military/jsf/x32_photo.html