Nose gear-less Harrier lands on "stool"
- Thread starter Murdoughnut
- Start date
JeppUpdater
Well-Known Member
Pretty interesting to watch.
deadstick
Well-Known Member
From what I gather from those I know, especially the original British Hawker AV-8A/C models with their lesser wing area moreso than the McDonnell Douglas AV-8B models, that the Harrier is dicey to hover since unlike a helicopter, the Harrier isn't hanging underneath a rotor system where there is some measure of stability, but rather sitting atop it's hover system of jet exhaust.......much like trying to stand on a log in a river. It can be done, but it takes finesse. The early model Harriers took alot of finesse, especially transitioning to and from forward flight
I had seen this video a while back, and it covers the subject very well. Keep in mind that there is a fair amount of file footage of both AV-8A/Cs as well as AV-8Bs:
Oddly enough, I tried to do an exchange tour back when, but believe it or not, there was no existing exchange between USAF A-10s and USMC AV-8s. There is an exchange between British Harrier GR7s and the USAF, but that wasn't open to A-10 guys, only F-15E/16.
Pilot Fighter
Well-Known Member
I like the one where the Harrier driver sat down on a container ship.
Murdoughnut
Well sized member
I liked my title better
Not to diminish the accomplishment of the pilot - it was a cool video of a difficult landing. The ship does have way (forward motion) on so it's not like he's hovering motionless over land - the harrier's got somewhere between 10-15kts of forward airspeed on during the whole landing event depending on how fast the ship was going. I imagine the ship probably had to put a master helmsmen on the helm to keep the ship steering absolutely straight as a normal helmsman's ability to keep steering straight varies greatly.
The two things that I thought was odd were:
- no one out on deck during the landing, like the pilot mentioned - where's the LSE?
- he made his approach straight up the stern - doing an instrument approach instead of the normal offset visual pattern landing - makes sense doing it the way they did it though.
ryan1234
Desensitized Member
I'm sure most of you know Art Nalls, who owns a Sea Harrier out of MD. While in the Marines, he had a catastrophic engine failure and essentially dead-sticked a AV-8A landing into a civilian field - For those of you familiar with hydraulics in fighter/attack aircraft it was an impressive feat. He's an interesting and very knowledgable guy to talk to... he has about 6 hours of single engine fighter-engine out time while a test pilot.
H46Bubba
Well-Known Member
No LSE required for Harrier ops. Pilots use the yellow center line which is called the AV-8 Tram Line for reference. There are also distance markings. Yellow shirts are only required for flight deck direction. In the event of an emergency landing all personnel are kept back far enough in the event the landing goes bad and the aircraft crashes. Man I never knew all the crap I studied for my Air Warfare pin would be so handy!
Pilot Fighter
Well-Known Member
I don't think Harriers have RATs, do they? Sounds hairy.
Flyinthrew
Well-Known Member
Many of us are pretty bummed that there is no exchange for the A10 as well. In fact there are NO exchanges into USMC Harriers except for foreign nations that also fly the Harrier. The rationale that we have been given is that the amount of time and resources it takes to get a guy trained just to be safe in the jet makes it not a good deal for the Marine Corps. 4 distinct types of takeoffs and 5 distinct types of landings will do that.