Supersonic Harrier Replacement Cancelled off the drawing board

[arkflyr]

This is new, at least for me. Margaret Thatcher cancelled the BAE replacement for the Harrier off the drawing board due to it looking weird.

The supersonic stealth jump jet shot down by Margaret Thatcher — The Times and The Sunday Times

Newly declassified documents reveal how a successor to the Harrier jump jet never got off the ground — because the PM disliked how it looked

apple.news

I’ve always been fascinated with the Harrier. Back when I worked at the FBO at MKC we had one there and on the media day for the airshow do a vertical landing followed by a vertical takeoff and he peeled up a bunch of asphalt off the runway right in the intersection of 19/21, he couldn’t have dropped a bomb in a better spot.

 

[///AMG]

STOVL and vertical lift is an absolutely useless parlor trick, that carries zero operational benefit, other than providing a purpose for other funny looking tiny aircraft carriers that also have no value. Fight me

 

[Minuteman]

They exist as an asset that can be based very far forward so a couple dudes with hand grenades can defeat the austere security around them to significant effect.

 

[Roger Roger]

STOVL and vertical lift is an absolutely useless parlor trick, that carries zero operational benefit, other than providing a purpose for other funny looking tiny aircraft carriers that also have no value. Fight me

And a lot of $$$ for the military industrial complex!