How Britain changed fighter jets forever... Harrier Jump Jet

May 1969 and one of the greatest races in the world is taking place. Multiple aircraft are streaming from London's post office tower to New York's Empire State Building to celebrate 50 years of the first transatlantic crossing. But one aircraft is winning and it's all because it has one special ability to fly straight up. Taking off from central London up into the sky and then landing on a platform in the East River next to Manhattan, it doesn't require an airport or a runway. Winning the race in only 6 hours and 11 minutes, cementing it in the eyes of the world as the ultimate aircraft and the envy of the Soviet Union. This would become the only successful VTOL aircraft ever built by the West until the F-35. This is the famous Harrier jump jet. The story of the Harrier begins with a drink at the pub. Two engineers from separate companies sat discussing their work. Stanley Hooker of the Bristol Engine Company told his friend Sydney Kam of Hawker Aircraft that he developed a new hybrid engine called the Pegasus from two other jet engines that could direct and vector the thrust not just backwards. This would have twin cold jets on either side of the compressor and a hot stream that could be directed downwards allowing lift vertically. Sydney perked up almost spilling his beer and said that this was the game changer that his company had been looking for. So Sydney and Hawker found themselves looking for a new project to sink their teeth into and hey they thought if we just take this engine design and put it in a jet it might crack the da Vinci code of the time. A vertical takeoff and landing military jet aircraft. Flashback a few years before many aircraft manufacturers around the world were looking for a new way to make an aircraft that had the vertical takeoff abilities of a helicopter but also the speed of a jet fighter. Something that would have been essential in the Korean war. This miracle plane wouldn't be restricted to vulnerable airfields and it could fly anywhere from carriers to forests and even the local Tesco car park. The issue was how could you make a powerful yet light enough engine that could do the job for this aircraft and that's where the Pegasus engine came in. The side note of course is that this concept was actually initially developed by a Frenchman called Michel Webo but the two English boys didn't want to highlight that fact. So naturally these two engineers were excited by the idea of picking up a meal deal in their own concept of a militarized flying car and promptly partnered up to bring it a reality and thus the Hawker Siddeley P1127 was born. Hawker Siddeley newly merged decided that this new aircraft engine combo would be perfect for a new NATO specification for a new light and tactical support fighter. This would replace the aging Fiat G91. Because this wasn't a British military project there would actually be no taxpayer dollars involved so Hawker Siddeley would have to develop it on their own dime. One of the key challenges was that hover jets was a total new science. They would need to develop physical models that replicated the Pegasus engine directing air downwards to understand what would happen to the concrete underneath, how it would bounce the aircraft up and where exactly the hot air would go. Plus there was also no airflow over the prospective jet's wings, rudders or tail. So how uh how would you control it? The engineers developed small thrusters on the wingtips as a reaction control mechanism. But it had to be as simple as possible with Sidney Cam the same engineer from the pub reiterating throughout the development that this had to be the most simple aircraft ever saying that sophistication meant complication and then escalation, cancellation and ruination of the company. And that would be his motto throughout the program. By 1958 Bristol had completed a Pegasus engine design that could actually generate 13 000 pounds of thrust which was slightly more than itself and the aircraft combined. Meaning that the concept would actually work and this plane would take to the skies under normal conditions. This development was such a game changer that NATO who had been keeping tabs on this little pet project asked that if it could be built faster and even told their member nations to pause ordering any other light tactical aircraft as this new flying VTOL jet was on the requirements. By this time in classic late government fashion which you'll see will come back time and time again in this story the United Kingdom jumped on board the bandwagon and ordered two additional prototypes for their own testing purposes. But interestingly there was some resistance because this was designed to be a subsonic light fighter for ground targets and not a supersonic bomber interceptor. One that would go up against the Russian bombers that was the threat of the time. On the 15th of July 1960 the first prototype was complete and was ready to fly straight up. Designing the Harrier from scratch must have been daunting but when it comes to you running your own business you don't need to start anything from scratch when the hard work has been done for you. I'm talking of course about ODO. ODO is an all-in-one management software that provides entrepreneurs with a range of applications such as invoicing, accounting, project management, inventory, website creation and more and it's their e-commerce platform that's just plain incredible. It works in four easy steps. You start by choosing your business objective and goal. 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That's just insane and when your business expands you can access all the other applications starting from 24 US dollars a month. So click the link down below for free and start making money. The two boys met back at the pub and chatted about their testing program. It had been a long road of testing various engine components, getting the hover controls right and even solving the power problems. The original prototypes could only tether hover for 2.5 minutes at a time. Taking a long drink from his beer, Hooker turned to Sydney and asked I suppose you're going to do some conventional flying for your first test flight tomorrow and Cam replied what for? Hooker said well you know just to make sure that the aeroplane is a nice aeroplane and everything is under control. With Sydney, Cam replying dryly oh Hawker aeroplanes always beautiful nothing wrong with a Hawker aeroplane I'm not going to bother that it will go vertical on its first time. The very next day on the 13th of February before Valentine's Day the prototype XP831 performed its first flight for 22 minutes hovering straight up. Once the engine was upgraded yet again the aircraft was shown to be able to transition between vertical and horizontal flight proving that it was a miracle and that the holy grail had been achieved. But what wasn't achieved though was the NATO contract. You see despite all the best efforts to make the very best plane NATO was underwhelmed by its performance characteristics and decided to pass on the program. Their specific requirements included the expectation for the performance of such an aircraft to be the equivalent of the conventional McDonnell Douglas F4 Phantom 2 fighter. These specifications called for a supersonic version of a V12 strike fighter with a combat radius of 460 kilometers and a cruise speed of Mach 0.92. Although they loved the vertical takeoff and landing feature flirting even with doing a joint order of 100 aircraft for their member nations this never eventuated. The hope was that despite a lack of any militaries actually ordering this aircraft Hawker Siddeley would be able to show that they had technically created the first V12 fighter and this would get some interest. Alas the program would only limp on with the Ministry of Ordering a few more prototypes to test and refine the technology with the Royal Air Force shrugging their shoulders and saying that they had no use for this aircraft. It looked like that by Christmas in 1961 the Harrier program had died before it began. But on a new winter's day in 1962 just after the new year the Ministry of Aviation of England decided that they wanted to test the aircraft and ordered nine of them to be built called the Kestrel. The idea was to see if it would work as a great platform to be used on the West German border. The Kestrel was assessed by a multinational tripartite evaluation squadron which considered of British, US and German pilots to determine how a V12 aircraft could be operated with these evaluations finishing in 1965. And while this testing was ongoing Hawker had returned to the drawing board to work on a supersonic version of the P1127 which was now called the P1154. It would solve the issues that plagued the NATO selection process and win them back that contract. And to ensure that everyone loved it they also made sure it fit the requirements of a Royal Air Force aircraft and a Royal Navy aircraft who were both looking for new fighters as well. Alas NATO would actually scrap the project completely despite the prototype being halfway built. And while they were trying to make an aircraft for both the Navy and the Air Force this meant that it was a jack of all trades and a master of none. The RAF wanted a low-level supersonic strike aircraft whilst the Navy sought a twin engine air defense fighter for their Navy battleships. And with nobody involved in the project anymore the British government withdrew in 1965. Man it really looks like Hawker Siddeley can't get a break on this new technology. You would think that the Holy Grail would so itself. But there were still those nine subsonic fighters that had been quite impressive and had wowed those US pilots and German pilots. The Royal Air Force had also noticed. What if they could bring the learnings from the P1154 to the Kestrel program and build the perfect VTOL fighter? And they did just that. On the 31st of August 1966 the first of these P1127 aircraft made their first maiden flight. And the RAF was so impressed they made a production order of 60 aircraft giving the aircraft its final designation the Harrier GR1. During its operations it was found that running it along a short runway and then going vertical allowed it to carry much more weapons. Two under each wing and one underneath the fuselage. There was also ability to carry two 30 millimeter cannon guns that could be fitted to the underside. And that's why a lot of the British ships were given ski jumps because it allowed these Navy versions, which I'll get to in a minute I am going ahead slightly here, to take off with more weapons. This aircraft was so popular with the RAF that the US Marines would take notice and they decided to put in their own order. And thus the Harrier went from a miracle single aircraft that nobody wanted to a complete family that had international acclaim. The first of the variants created was the AVAA Harrier which was used by the US Marines. And changes include the removal of all magnesium components which corroded quickly at sea and the integration of American radios and identification friend or foe systems. They also used a few other American components such as American injection seats. And because this was a brand new aircraft that the Americans had never seen before they also needed a twin seater training version. So Hawker Siddeley created a longer version to accommodate this. Because of the costs involved with moving manufacturing over to the US, the Marines concluded that it would be better to just make the damn planes in England. Which in terms of US military aircraft history this is one of the only times that an aircraft has been built on foreign soil to be used extensively in the US military. And the use of these Harrier jump jets in the US Marines actually caused quite a stir because this was a jet that didn't actually require the super carrier to operate from which was all the range of the US Navy at the time. This led to ideas of small patrol craft called sea control ships that would have four Harriers on board that could provide close air support without the massive logistics of carriers. But my favorite design from the Harrier debate was also the creation of giant submarine carriers. Which we already have a very long video about that you can watch after this one. The RAF Harriers were also mostly deployed to Western German bases as a stonewall of a Soviet invasion. From camouflage rough bases the Harrier was expected to be able to launch attacks on advancing armor columns from East Germany when the Soviets were to finally attack. But they actually saw real action in the 1980s in the Falkland War, performing everything from anti-artillery strike missions to Navy defense. Well actually it was the latter performed by a special naval version. The Royal Navy, seeing how happy the Marines and the RAF were with the Harrier, asked for their own version. They called it the Sea Harrier. It was designed for various naval roles and it featured a radar, sidewinder missiles for fleet air defense, and navigational aids for carrier landings, corrosion resistance modifications for maritime operations, and a raised bubble canopy for improved visibility. These later upgrades also equipped the Sea Harrier with AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles and the advanced Blue Vixen radar for long-range air-to-air combat, as well as the Sea Eagle missiles for anti-ship missions. So it made this little Harrier quite the unit when out at sea. After the Falklands War, British Aerospace developed the Skyhook concept, a novel method for operating Harriers from smaller ships. This system would use a crane to suspend the aircraft mid-air for launch and recovery, with additional cranes designed to hold weapons for rapid rearming. The Skyhook aimed to conserve fuel and enable operations in rougher seas, where the Harrier had some trouble landing on sea decks. Although it was marketed to foreign buyers and even speculated to be used on large submarines, like those aircraft carrier submarines I mentioned before, the concept failed to attract any interest. And from here we saw an explosion of other crazy Harrier concepts, from a tandem cockpit design that looks very much like a cloud car from Star Wars, to a version that could carry a crack squad of five British commandos to prevent a terrorist attack on a North Sea oil platform. They would all sit here in the tail. And one of the most absolutely horrifying concept is the GRIER pods, the Ground Resupply Insertion Extraction Rescue Pod. The passengers would be slung in pods where the missiles would go and be carried around by the Harrier. Imagine the heat and the noise and sitting in that coffin. Yikes. In fact, this is such a wild idea that I'm going to cover it on my sister channel, They Won't Tell You, where we'll be talking about men in pods. By now the Harrier had seen over a decade of service and it was time to think about the future. And they came up with an original concept called the Harrier 2. And boy, you thought that the development of the original Harrier was full of drama, you haven't seen anything yet. One of the flaws of the original line of Harrier jump jets was its lack of range and payload. The American version, for example, carried less than half of that of the A-4 Skyhawk, and took twice as long to maintain to get it back into the air. So in 1973, a joint project was started by the two nations that bought the Harrier, USA and the UK to develop a successor. While a more powerful engine was on the agenda, the Pegasus 15, by this point, it was actually too big to fit into the current Harrier fuselage. So this new plane would have to be bigger with a larger wing. They would call it the AV-16 because it was double the capacity and range of the American Harrier, the AV-8. However, the British were the first to pull out due to a lack of funding. And because they were only ordering around 60 aircraft, it didn't make sense for them to front up half the cost. And you will see in a moment that this would be a decision that would really come back to bite them. The United States didn't want to be caught holding the bag and decided to pull out as well. However, the American partner, McDonnell Douglas, knew that there was merit to this redesign of the Harrier and kept working on it. They created a hybrid aircraft modifying two original AV-8s with a new wing, revised intakes, redesigned exhaust nozzles, and it resulted in a better payload and range aircraft. And despite having the same engine as the AV-8, the AV-8B was approved with an order of 324 aircraft. Because of this comically large production run, the British came back with their tail between their legs. They were enticed by the lower cost of acquiring Harriers promised by a large production run and the fact that the US was shouldering the expense of development. But because they were returning to the program, and despite being the originator of the design, McDonnell Douglas would actually be the main contractor and the aircraft would be mostly built in Missouri, with only 40% done in England. Now that must have stung. During this production run, the US developed a night attack version, a new train of versions of the B variant, and thanks to Italy and Spain joining the program, they also created an AV-8B plus version with better radar and increased missile capability. Overall, 824 Harriers were built of all types and still service around the world, and it was time to talk about the third version. In the early 1990s, McDonnell Douglas and British Aerospace, who had inherited the program, started to discuss about a new version called the Harrier 3. It was designed to maximize the capabilities of existing models by incorporating elements from both the C Harrier and the AV-8B. The aircraft was planned to feature an enlarged wing and a torsion box to accommodate additional fuel and hardpoints, which would also improve endurance. Due to its increased size, folded wingtips were proposed. To support this heavier airframe, Rolls-Royce was expected to develop a more powerful Pegasus engine with 4000 pounds of additional thrust, because again, they inherited the original Pegasus design. The Harrier 3 would also have been equipped with advanced weaponry, including brand new AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles, making it a formidable air-to-air fighter. However, by this point, the design was nearly 30 years old, and this aircraft was just a product of its time. It wasn't really great at fighting enemies that were over the horizon of the earth, you know, just using radar to fight each other. And it was also not great when it came to supersonic threats. So ultimately, when Boeing and BAE Systems continued studying this design in the early 2000s, they abandoned it in favor of the new F-35 Clean Sheet program. The British would eventually sell off their aircraft to the US Marines to be used for spare parts, lasting until last May in 2004, when the F-35 finally took over the mantle in the Marines of their VTOL jet fighter. Today, the Harrier is still in operation in Spain, with plans to extend their operation beyond 2025 due to a lack of funds to buy the other aircraft. And this does seem like a rather unceremonious end to the legendary Harrier family, but in my mind, I think they're a legend space for itself.