Harrier Farewell – Cottesmore December 2010

The canoes are basically the aircraft fuselage sans all major components i.e fin tailplane wing engine etc -basically the bare fuse. Work on the basis of no future for the aircraft that are that stripped as some like ZD323 was slotted into the Jump line at the end but hadnt flown for years and now I guess never will . Some of the canoes left I am sure will be some of the aborted JUMP aircraft that were destined to be upgraded but stopped work on when Cottesmore closure was announced last year.

Thanks for that David, my visit on Oct 7th was obviously pre SSDR and that day the BAe staff/RAF personnel were still hard at work on inspections, rebuilds right through to the GR9 awaiting its test flight at the end of the hangar.

When I was lucky enough to get on the visit, I had no idea of the significance then, but what an afternoon it was.

what about resurrecting the ‘ground decoy’ role?:D or future ‘carrier deck training’

Eh, and why practice deck handling if there are no decks in the armed forces?

Doubt they’ll be used for much else as the other fast jets have very different configurations for stuff like engine changes. The old jags are currently used for engine training.

I seem to remember it mentioned that a dozen SHARs where kept in good nick by the navy for ‘flight deck movement training’. will these now be scrapped, or can something similar be done with some of the GR.9s

Harrier sims

Does anyone know the fate of the 2 GR5 (updated to GR9) Full mission Simulators. I am aware that they have been dismantled, and are in storage, but wouldn’t it be nice if one could be renovated and used as a “fairground” ride or used by a University (eg Craqnfield) as a research facility to demonstrate the flight charcteristics of this unique aircraft. However this suggestion would come to nought if the Harrier Simulators were dismantled in the same manner as the Concorde simulator where the cables between the motion frame and the cockpit were cut with a power saw

The visual system is one of the major problems with preserving the GR5 Harrier sims as the Eye Slaved Tracking System is complicated, and a new simpler visual system would need to be installed. I know that proposals were raised to use the original Day/Night visual Image Generator and fit a WIDE visual display system to the Sea Harrier, but I don’t know how far down the scapyard route the Sharsim has progressed. The GR5/GR9 would be a better bet for resuscitation, since it was installed in relocatable buildings that are easier to transport

All in all it is sad ending to a unique British Engineering achievement

Very sad indeed.Whilst I understand why it is being chopped, it seems short sighted to retire it simply because of its high operating costs. I would have thaught the Gr9’s offer more bang for the Buc, and more versatility in the long run, when compared to the tonkas left behind ? lets hope a good number of them come up for disposal in one piece, and a dozen can be flown into preservation and kept live. I fear that won’t happen though, since all the engines will surely go back to Rolls for redeployment.

The canoes are basically the aircraft fuselage sans all major components i.e fin tailplane wing engine etc -basically the bare fuse. Work on the basis of no future for the aircraft that are that stripped as some like ZD323 was slotted into the Jump line at the end but hadnt flown for years and now I guess never will . Some of the canoes left I am sure will be some of the aborted JUMP aircraft that were destined to be upgraded but stopped work on when Cottesmore closure was announced last year.

re

Pagen -the Mod consider that these aircraft have a resale value. Therefore I would expect there to be a market for them somewhere with a foreign air arm.

I would guess India.

You would have thought that having spent a fortune upgrading them (like the Buccaneer, and Jaguars) the MOD would have laughed in the face of any suggestion of getting rid of the Harrier. Or would that be too sensible?

Anti det maint for the flyers, whilst we dispose of the unserviceable “canoes” but it’s looking like all will be roaded out, as rolls royce support ends at the end of the year, Id imagine the specials will get allocated however fins can be changed if the airframe itself were required with low hours on it

the powers that be haven’t decided on disposal suppose they are seeing if theres customers, there will be for major spares from the other harrier operators however if that’s the case it’ll be a reduce to produce programme

Would the ‘canoes’ be just the fuselages of the aircraft?
I was lucky enough to go on a visit to Cottesmore just before the dreaded retirement announcement, the pilots seemed upbeat about the Harriers future but I do remember the CRO being convinced of the aircrafts demise.

During the visit we went into ‘Depth’? where BAe staff were working on the Harriers in what I recall was a nine month programme of rebuilding some of the jets, the hangar showed the various stages right up to a jet at the hangar entrance all complete ready for test flight.
What will happen to these partially complete jets? Are they the ‘canoes’ you speak of Stacey24b?

Very sad day indeed, I went against my normal instincts and ignored a dreadful forecast to make the two and a half hour trip up to Cottesmore.
I am really glad I did, I’d have never forgiven myself if I hadnt gone……it was a visit just to say ‘I was there’ because we will be talking about this retirement for many years to come.

A big thankyou to the crews who taxied to the 22 end to bid farewell.

Can I just say a big thank you to everyone at Cottesmore for today, great to see the GR1 and SHar on display and the shutting down of all those engines is a a sound that will stay with me, very haunting.

Haunting, yes and memorable; you could hear a pin drop when the final noise of the mighty Pegasus disappeared. This, along with the ‘long walk’ by pilots and ground crew through the pipers and crowd, will remain with me forever.

Well done guys.

Nowhere near as good as a lot of the other photos that have appeared over the last few days but then I’m not a photographer and the weather was dismal

Excellent pictures! I hope that retro camo schemed Harrier gets a new home, that paint shceme is terrific!

Not the best photos but then I’m an artist not a photographer but hope you like these, if anything is out of focus it was probably the shivers!

Does anyone know what is going to happen to the Harrier force (and spares). I would imagine that the cost of mothballing the fleet would be a cost-effective insurance measure – just in case!

Channel 4 +1 news previewed a peice about the harrier on now probably last item.

Now look at people around the world who have old British combat aircraft still in service and suddenly these combat proven GR.9s dont look quite so obsolete esp when you start considering things like HMCS and TIALD.

I kind of hope you are right, but I can’t imagine that there will be a new operator for these Harriers.
India was mooted, but they didn’t even want to get involved with the low houred Sea Harrier 2 when they became available and frame/engine wise they are very similar to the 1s that they operate.
To take on a force of GR.9s from scratch would be a massive undertaking, it’s old and complex, but more importantly would require any force to bring in a whole new system of training and support- VTOLpilots are unique. Also support needed for the Pegasus must be huge. Cost wise for most smaller airforces it would be more attractive to operate more conventional aircraft than less specialist aircraft, and they are all downsizing
Matt’s outlook seems more realistic.
But even then I wonder, all the other users of Harrier II use AV-8Bs which do have their differences to the GR.9, they rapidly look like a huge spares source.

I must say I absolutely agree with what Milt says, and that manifests itself most with the ill conceived Nimrod MRA4 project.

Well I spent an interesting several hours waiting at Marham, with a few other stalwarts, the weather decided to play a last cunning trick on the Harrier and its finale ….. I think the photo below, taken 2 hours before the expected arrival, sums up the result ….. :rolleyes:

Keith.

Sad but not surprising. I echo a lot of the sentiments on here, but have to say that this has been coming for the last 15 years. MOD wigs have wasted such insane inordinate ammounts of money in the last 15 years, on incompetent badly thought out, and bungled procurement programs, it was only a matter of time before a government was forced to make such sacrifice. the crunch has come for MOD

it’s MOD’s fault, rather than a question of short sighted MP’s. As an organisation, it has resisted change or any efforts to make it more efficient and less wasteful for the last 20 years, putting it in the sitiuation it is in now. It’s easy to target defence cuts as the culprit, but how can a badly run, old fashioned organisation expect to continue to write off £8-12 billion every year on complete c0ck ups, and then baulk when huge culls like this take place?!. I’m no politician fan, but seems to me its easy to blame them and private industry, when fury should be directed at the top floors within MOD. We only get to see the end reasult, ie Harrier and Nimrod cancellations, but just look at every sigle procurement deal in the last 15 years, and it makes for astonishing reading!. The incompetency and wasteage within MOD really is absolutely incredible..and it has now come up against a roothless government that is prepared to do what ever is necessary to deal with it. Read the Dispatches papers on MOD procurement for the last 15 years, its a real eye opener!!

poor Harrier! 🙁

What he said! Its ironic (I suppose) that my entire military life, from being an air cadet (yes, in 1969!), through 8 years in the Senior Service and 24 years in the Light Blue until retirement in 2010 almost matches the service of this wonderful aircraft. However, unlike me, the Harrier made a difference and the public loved it, but we can’t afford it. Endex! (Doesn’t make it right though!)

Pagen – its worth bearing in mind that in 1995 an RAF team went round looking at GR3 airframes that were suitable for refurbishment for export. The only difference is that we are fifteen years on -many of the GR.9s have low hours i.e about half life remaining and have come out of an extensive modification program in the last four years. Now look at people around the world who have old British combat aircraft still in service and suddenly these combat proven GR.9s dont look quite so obsolete esp when you start considering things like HMCS and TIALD.