Are there any aircraft testing with fulidic thrust vectoring right now. Is F-35 going to use it in the future?

I think the X-36 and Bird of Prey might have had fluidic thrust vectoring, their engine nozzles look similar to one here http://www.pr.afrl.af.mil/divisions/prt/ihptet/brochure/Exhaust.htm (The Shaped Fixed A8/Fixed A9 Nozzle).

X-36 pic http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/X-36/Small/EC97-44294-2.jpg

Bird of Prey pic http://www.boeing.com/news/releases/2002/photorelease/q4/pr_021018-3m.html

Spanish AV-8B operations http://www.dappa.nl/principe.htm

A nice discussion on this aircraft would be cool to. I’ll start it off by asking if anyone knows the reason the Litening pod is fitted to the starboard inboard underwing pylon instead of the centerline. RAF Harrier GR.7’s carry the TIALD pod on the centerline, so why can’t USMC Harrier II’s do the same with Litening. Just makes more sense to me……that way you have that station available for fuel or another weapon (namely an LGB). Just doesn’t make any sense to me……..

The Litening pod was a quick ‘war on terror’ modification and that was the easiest place to put it. I think I read that it will be repositioned to the centre line pylon soon but I can’t find where I saw this.

The RAF carries the TIALD pod on a gun pack station, not the centre line station, this is because our Harrier’s don’t have guns 😡 USMC Harrier’s need both gun stations for their 25mm gatling gun so they couldn’t do this.

Lot’s of great pics here http://www.airliners.net/search/photo.search?front=yes&maxres=500&keywords=AV-8B

Great pics can be found at the USN website too, search for Harrier AV-8B here http://www.navy.mil/

Here is one of my favourite AV-8B pics http://www.navy.mil/management/photodb/photos/041003-F-3188G-216.jpg

RAF TIALD position pic and USMC pics.

ive heard that 800 and 801 NAS are soon to re equip with the harrier gr7 i was wondering what will these aircraft have to offer to the fleet air arm?

Cost savings and a better strike capability. http://www.airsceneuk.org.uk/hangar/2002/gr9/gr9.htm

Regardless the content or quality of the threads, one can wonder what Army and Navy topics are doing at an AVIATION FORUM. It seems not logical to me. Perhaps there are other forums or places for these kind of interests. :diablo:

The Army, Navy and Missiles and Munitions sub-forums were introduced because so many aviation threads went off topic, the thread would be titled something like ‘U-2 spyplane’ but the last post would be about torpedoes :rolleyes:

This is probably going to start all over again 🙁