ZF130

I hope I may be excused for going back to the previous subject, ZF130; I have only recently joined these forums, and spotted this.

I was a technical photographer at Dunsfold 1979-93, and remember this aircraft well, I’d heard it had been scrapped, very sad and like the whole Sea Harrier FRS2 / FA2 programme a huge waste of good kit.

130 had a complete Sea Harrier FRS2 ( as then ) cockpit on the right hand side of the flight deck, complete with stick control column.

There were 2 observer stations at the aft end of the cabin, facing aft to view various displays; with this arrangement it was unsurprisingly notorious for upsetting the most cast iron stomachs !

One avionics observer fresh from his survival training refused to fly in it, as there was a heavy chemical toilet out in the open in the cabin, basically unuseable, but the aircraft didn’t carry a liferaft…

While the chances of surviving a ditching are of course slim, I thought he had a good point; unfortunately he had quite a brusque attitude which put peoples’ backs up, so it developed into a matter of who would give in; I have a feeling he did agree to fly in it in the end, not doing so would have been a career limiting move in every way.

God knows what the conversion to Blue Vixen test-bed cost, but I’m sure something useful could have been done with this aircraft – the Captor radar in the Typhoon is a descendant of Blue Vixen…

Scrapping ZF130 reminds me of destroying the jigs for TSR2, the Navy acted with indecent haste to scrap the Sea Harrier FA2, the ultimate indication that winning wars comes a very poor second to glittering careers in the Admiralty !