Harrier safety

I have seen a horrendous clip of a US Harrier rotating sideways as the pilot ejected into the side of a hanger – one of the worst accidents i could imagine. I think the attrition rate is allied to the nature of the aircrafts functions and as such you would expect it to have more issues than a less functional/more conventional design ?

John

Having had a lot of time on the first Harrier GR1 simulator and a little on the present GR7 simulator I have nothing but admiration for the pilots who fly the Harrier operationally. To fly it is one thing but to operate it as well is way beyond my level of competance. I did find that the transition from a land and stop technique honed over 13,000 hours to a stop and land scenario was mind bogglingly difficult as was the constant attitude zero flare landing technique. Though it seemed brutal it proved for me to be the safest way of arriving.
Respect.
Cheers,
Trapper 69

A similar incident with ‘confused control syndrome’ befell a GR7 during a display not many moons ago 😮
I’ve recently finished reading an excellent book on the Sea Harrier, after reading a description of a typical airshow demo I will be viewing future Harrier displays with renewed admiration.

The late lamented “Hoof” Proudfoot was a Harrier bona mate in the early days. He once told me that he was on an exchange posting with the US Marine Corps at the time they were converting to their first AV8 Harriers.
Eventually the Marines elected to display their new acquisition however the nominated display pilot screwed up the nozzle position when he did the on crowd bowing trick at an airshow and drove his airplane into the ground before any recovery action could be made effective. A very large marine aviator shook off the debris and staggered away mumbling.
On the following Monday morning the commanding general of Marine Aviation sent an urgent telex to all squadrons saying – “The bow and crash manouever is hereby banned………!!!!!!!!!!”.
Cheers,
Trapper 69

I worked on GR.3/T.4/GR.5 and 7 . They are very prone to fod because of the size of the intakes. In the early days of the GR.5 the Kapton cabling and the routing of cables wasn’t as good as it could be and that caused a lot of difficulty. Because of their complexity and the way in which they are operated they do tend to have a fairly high attrition rate. As for operating one as a private warbird – forget it.
The very likely reason for the evacuation is that the AV.8B contains large amounts of carbon fibre and the burning of this material is quite toxic.

Think I read somewhere that the Americans used helicopter pilots initially for the Harriers, with disastrous results. Perhaps they had overlooked the fact that it is a fast jet when not hovering / pretending to be a helicopter.

Stuart

Whereas the RAF & Navy taught jet jocks to fly helicopters before conversion to Harriers – apparently they had a deep rooted fear of slowing down and stopping before they were on the ground 😀

Was watching that on the news yesterday & when they commented that it narrowly missed a trailer park my first thought was “If it had been a Tornado it would have landed directly in the middle of it”…

Thanks chaps.

[SARCASM]And news reports are always so pro-aviation, aren’t they?[/SARCASM]

Think I read somewhere that the Americans used helicopter pilots initially for the Harriers, with disastrous results. Perhaps they had overlooked the fact that it is a fast jet when not hovering / pretending to be a helicopter.

Stuart

I’d check out the Modern Military forum and do some Googling. I’m pretty sure the US Harriers have a worse record than the UK, especially in the early days which is understandable. Needless to say they also operate rather more of them, more regularly.

I worked on Harriers for several years. They do have a relatively poor safety record associated with the single engine and all the complications associated with the additional controls needed for hovering flight. They are then also vulnerable to the usual ground attack jet issues, like operating close to terra firma!

Not sure about the Harriers overall safety record but I suppose this highlights the problems of a relatively complicated and single engine a/c.
Eng goes poof and the a/c suddenly turns in to a brieze block ( hope thats the way you spell it! ) and then there’s only one way it’s going to go then.
Although modern engines are pretty reliable it could well be that the new US UK VTOL fighter ( can’t remember it’s designation) will have the same problems with attrition.
Probably also explains the CAA’s viewpoint on privately operated Harriers too!