Harrier GR3 rebuild to fly

the ones everett aero have got for sale are all static only. they include the Sea Jet that collided with an F-16, the one that has a broken pintle mount and the T8 with the burnt frame 29(?) due to a cracked jet pipe..

Everett Aero have some up for grabs at

http://www.everettaero.com/

under the aeroplanes section

David,

I haven’t seen the accident report for Tim Ellison’s crash, so am not in position to comment. However, I have seen instances of the aircraft taking birds down the intake, it happened to one of our development jets just recently. I have seen 1″ tears in 6 fan blades caused by a blind rivet tail. I have seen the effects of doing rough ground trials, where the front fan looks like a bird has been nesting in it! None of which have caused any problems to the operation of the engine or aircraft.

I will concede that occurences of FOD damage on Pegasus engines is probably higher than most other a/c types due to the size and position of the intake

Dees – Since when has the Pegasus been Fod tolerant? I know Tim Ellison who is in a wheelchair because of a minute crack that was caused by Fod. Similarily an Indian Navy Sea Harrier was lost because of a crack that eminated from a nick smaller than a grain of salt. Having worked on
GR.3 / T.4 /GR.5/7 I can tell you that the engine is incredibly Fod prone.

It might be not so much has the Harrier embarrassed itself at an airshow, more has it suffered an engine problem whilst in the hover… That is its big thing – people would remember the Harrier as the plane that stood still in the sky; if it had suffered more problems in this phase then surely this could or would happen at an airshow or display. Just coz it hasn’t yet… – Nermal

You can’t operate the jet without the nozzles, the aircraft needs them to take off when STO-ing (they effectively help the jet break ground effect. A CTO is not SOP).

Flood, sounds like accidents 1 and 3 in your list were possibly due to pilot error, not engine related? Which would put them into the same category as the majority of airshow accidents… Lights blue touch paper, stands well back….

David, I have seen plenty of pics of well and trully FODed engines that continued to turn and burn. I have seen jets here at work that have ingested FOD and the pilot didn’t even know. The engine is remarkably FOD tolerant, it is just a bit more prone to occurences of FOD, due ot the size and position of the intake…

Flood- At the time of Operation Granby the GR.3 consisted of a few i.e about four with 233OCU and the flight out in Belize. The GR.5 wasn’t fit for frontline use at that stage -infact many in our section were adamant that it wasn’t fit to take to the far end of the airfield!
As for Harrier hover accidents -certainly the last was about 1993 onto the hover pan in Vigo Wood. It’s not the type of machine for private owners. As for operating it in just conventional flight – the problem is that the engine is a massive Hoover for want of another word and even the slightest of FOD damage is usually terminal.

what were the reasons for the first and third of those?

My info says that the first was because it failed to recover from a dive, whilst the third lost control at low level…
Anyone else?

Flood

While I agree that the Harrier is very complex, isn’t the U.S. restoration with FHC. If anyone can afford to do it…they can! Deep pockets can solve many problems.

Jim

Folks… a lot of this discussion centers on the pro’s and con’s of vertical flight, but how about just normal flight ?

The CAA (assuming you’ve solved the major design authority + other problems) could simply ensure the nozzle levers have been removed.

what were the reasons for the first and third of those?

How many Piston engined warbirds do we see going in due to engine problems?

Hmm.
The RAF ones that I know of…
12/1/72 XW918 3Sqn – failed to recover from a dive during a demonstration near Wildenrath, WG.
3/6/84 XZ135 4Sqn – engine fire during display at Aschaffenburg, WG, pilot ejected after emergency landing but one killed on ground.
28/6/86 XW769 4Sqn – 1 killed after Harrier crashed following loss of control whilst low level at display at Chievres Air Base, Belgium.

Flood

I certainly know about Bill Bedford’s crash at Paris, but that was in one of the 1127s, the first one if I remember right. Don’t know about the other, may have to have a trawl through our flight test data…

Could have been Paris, not really a Harrier man. :rolleyes:

I would have thought just looking at it simply that the Meteor is alot easier to maintain than the Harrier. Would we really need one on the circuit while all the current Harriers are about?

I certainly know about Bill Bedford’s crash at Paris, but that was in one of the 1127s, the first one if I remember right. Don’t know about the other, may have to have a trawl through our flight test data…

Didn’t Bill Bedford drop one at Farnbourgh?

what other airshow failures has there been, aside from Lowestoft?

There was an RAF one at a NATO thing in Brussels that occasionally gets shown on telly, another involving an early American Harrier where the pilot ejects just in the nick of time, and another which could have been in Canada although I can’t remember if it was an AV-8A or B. These I have seen on TV. – Nermal

[I]whilst if the Harrier has a problem when doing its party piece then it is totally reliant on gravity and gravity alone I]

As is Eurofighter, and a whole bunch of other fly by wire jets! If the donk quits, the jet falls out of the sky!! As Damien says, what other airshow failures has there been, aside from Lowestoft?

I can’t quite follow your logic on the spares and training argument. This will be no worse than for any other ex-military aircraft, and one could argue that since the Sea Harrier is still in service with the RN, and a Helluva lot of parts are common with the GR3, then spares availability must be better. In addition, people will have worked on the aircraft in service a lot more recently than with a Meteor. if we’re allowed to fly Gnats, then, from a servicing/complexity point of view, then we should be able to fly a Harrier. realistically, we’ll never be allowed to because of the lack of manual reversion, and even with the best will in the world, the thing glides like a brick.

Hey, Flood,

the Meteor has a worse service record than the Harrier – would you like to see them grounded too?

Hey, dees01
I certainly would if they needed as many man-hours per flying hour at the sort of price which could/should rule out casual/display flying by anybody except the military. Except it wouldn’t really happen anyway since our warbird companies seem to have a fixation with Mustangs and Spitfires…
But lets play this silly game – both the Meteor and the Harrier have design faults: the Meteor in that it would bite you if you relaxed or got into a spin (does this tell you I know that there was a problem but can’t be bothered to spend an hour or so looking for it?) and the Harrier in that it was quirky and innovative and pilots needed to learn a whole new different mindset.
The Meteor was fairly basic, the engine was (by todays standards, anyway) fairly simple, and the airframe – once you knew and remembered its limitations – made it ideal as a first generation jet trainer (just like the Vampire). You might say that, by todays standards again, the Harrier is fairly simple too – but any warbird operator is not going to have the same support structure behind it that the RAF had for theirs, so, with all the best will in the world, things are going to be missed, spares are going to be sparse, training is going to be near non existant, need I go on?
I suppose there is something to be said that if something goes wrong whilst a Meteor is displaying then it has the ability to (hopefully) chose its landing spot (within reason, of course), whilst if the Harrier has a problem when doing its party piece then it is totally reliant on gravity and gravity alone (as has been seen at numerous displays over the years)…

Flood

Hey, Flood,

the Meteor has a worse service record than the Harrier – would you like to see them grounded too?

Cottesmore has two GR3s on site – the one on the gate, and 3 Sqn have one outside their hangar.