Yup, you read that correctly. With the help of spare parts scavenged from Britain’s old GR9 Harriers that the Marine Corps just bought from the UK, the Marines could keep their AV-8B Harrier jump jets flying until 2030. Yes, the Harriers could serve alongside, F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, EA-18G Growlers, and whatever jet is selected as the Navy’s Unmanned Carrier-Launched Surveillance and Strike jet. Remember, the F-35B short-takeoff and vertical landing version of the JSF was originally supposed to start replacing the Marines’ Harriers and F/A-18 Hornets by oh about now. You all know what’s happened to that plan. The AV-8B entered service with the Marines in the mid-1980s.
Naval Air Systems Command has done a structural analysis of the Harriers’ airframes and concluded that the jets will be good, with plenty of maintenance, to fly through 2030, said Rear Adm. Donald Gaddis, the Navy’s program executive officer for tactical aviation during the Navy League’s annual Sea, Air, Space conference in National Harbor, Md.
{ 84 comments… read them below or add one }
welcome to the modern air force – fly it till the wings fall off! (Before anyone says anything, I'm fully aware USMC aircraft are not part of the air force)
I guess the resale value is now less than the scrap value.
The USMC should cancel the F-35B. If they want a STOVL fighter they should take the Harrier and give it a longer fuselage, bigger size, stealth shaping, RAM coatings in crucial spots, AESA, internal IRST, heavy armament, added armor for CAS missions, and an engine modernized with today's technology. This "Super Harrier," for lack of a better term, should be quick to make and easy to produce as well as provide great capability.
For good explanation on why the USN and USMC shouldn't buy the F-35 you can read my paper: http://www.scribd.com/doc/88946660/Why-the-USN-an…
I wouldn't be surprised to see if they really do opt to keep an advanced Super Hornet. JSF will replace Hornets, but not Supers. Perhaps higher-block JSF's maybe, but that's the distant future.
Wait, didn't you just describe the F-35B?
No I didn't. The F-35B has no armor and it carries a dismal payload. Also, when I was talking about the engine I meant an upgraded version of the same engine that the current Harrier uses.
Name some aircraft with armor for me.
The AH-64 and the A-10, but just the cockpits.
It can carry more than the harrier. Internal AND External hardpoints remember. As for armor, WHAT? How much armor does a Harrier have? NONE. How about a Hornet? Or an F-16?
Yeah cause you know
"If they want a STOVL fighter they should take the Harrier and give it a longer fuselage, bigger size, stealth shaping, RAM coatings in crucial spots, AESA, internal IRST, heavy armament, added armor for CAS missions, and an engine modernized with today's technology."
is a cheap and simple process. While they are add it why not just bring the Iowa back out of reserve, and give it new guns, a new superstructure, VLS, new radar, torpedo tubes, and the ability to shoot crayons.
Should be an equally cheap and simple process.
That fact that you have to pull out a raggedy strawman argument in order to make the F-35B look appealing to an upgraded Harrier says a lot about the weaknesses of the F-35B. If you can't use a good argument just don't post.
Sorry, man, but your conceptual redesign of an existing airfame that's been shown to not be very good is just as raggedy.
You should know that the Super Hornet is one such design and it has turned out great.
I read your paper, good work, but it doesn't seem to hold much ground. The Harrier, while a great development in VTOL and STOVL aircraft, has come to the time of retirement. At this point, with most of the R&D behind us, the F35 is cheaper to produce than to develop a 5th gen AV-8.Andrew has a point in that we can't always upgrade, and the equipment we have currently is almost all from the first Gulf War or even the Vietnam war. It's time for a revision, and the F-35 is part of that.
Where was my attempt to make the F-35B appealing again? I was merely commenting on your idea that tearing down an airframe and redesigning or reconfiguring over 90% of it is somehow a cheap and simple process.
Your the one who's making the F-35B look appealing, because I don't think anyone else in interested in another VTOL design process at the moment.
"If you can't use a good argument just don't post.
—This from the individual who hand waves a magical upgraded Harrier with absolutely no understanding of the engineering hurdles involved.
yeah, BlackOwl has a giant love affair with a Super Hornet that only exists in powerpoint form and a Harrier that he just thought up.
In other words, load a bunch of crap onto it so it can not fly? Great plan. Quick and Easy? Sounds like it would work as well as "shovel ready jobs" did.
The modernized and more powerful engine would allow the Super Harrier to do a lot more than the present Harrier can do.
What "modernized and more powerful engine" did you have in mind?
Regards & all,
Thomas L. Nielsen
Luxembourg
I'm saying we should make an upgraded version. It wouldn't be that hard to make.
"This "Super Harrier," for lack of a better term, should be quick to make and easy to produce…."
So taking an existing airframe, making it bigger, giving it stealth shaping, RAM coating, heavier armament, armor and a new engine will be "quick and easy", or for that matter quicker and easier than designing a new aircraft from scratch?
Please name one historical example (or other good evidence) of this actually being the case.
Regards & all,
Thomas L. Nielsen
Luxembourg
Um… the Super Hornet. It was proposed in 1992 and the first prototype quickly went through testing in 1995… Only a matter of 3 years.
IIRC, much of the developmental groundwork for the Super Hornet was done in the late 1980's, when MD offered the "Hornet 2000", so a bit more than 3 years for development, me thinks.
Also, though this may be nitpicking, the Super Hornet is no better armoured than the original, and soem of the advanced sensors were not available for the initial Super Hornets.
And although I do agree that the Super Hornet fits my request for a historical example, it is still my considered opinion that it is not a valid comparison since the Hornet (Super or otherwise) is not a STOVL aircraft. STOVL brings with it a whole host of issues that the Super Hornet development process didn't have to deal with, especially once you start upping the GTOW.
I do agree that the Harrier-type platform may have some development potential (there were a lot of "Harrier II" studies floating about), but I am not so sure it would be cost effective. Of course, if the F-35 ends up getting ditched, then it might be the only option…..
Regards & all
Thomas L. Nielsen
Luxembourg
speaking of the F-35, are you a fan of it?
The Harrier is an old design; and while it's been a sucessful aircraft, the design does have its limitations – the requirement for four engine exhaust and bypass nozzles, rather than the straight through airflow of a regular aircraft's engine (or even the F35B) will always limit the performance of the Harrier design.
If yopu stuck with the Harrier design concept, you could never reach the flight performance of an F35B. And there is also a limit on how much you can scale up the Harrier design too. The aircraft needs that huge bypass fan on the engine; keep trying to upscale that and the design falls apart, it just does not work.
You could always improve on the design of something, but every design has its own inherent limitations. With the Harrier, that point has been reached; you can continue to tweek it, update radar and other sensors etc, but there is no radical growth and improvement to be had.
If you take a harrier and slap all that on do you know what you have?-A paperweight, that hypothetical Harrier wouldn't be able to take off.
a 7 ton door stop.
that would basically make it the cost of the F-35b anddd it will still be a worse aircraft…
arright heres how it is: you cant just say "give it stealth shaping" that means pretty much redesigning the entire plane: it wouldnt even look like a harrier. If you add all that radar and armor, even with the upgraded engine, it is gonna be slow and a whole lot less agile: adding a bigger engine does nothing to increase turning agility.
the harriers are not supersonic. the f-35 is.
the harrier cannot dogfight. the f-35 can.
rather than upgrading the harriers in the way that you stated, wouldn't it be easier to take the navy's f-35 becase it has greater wing area, and add armor and more missle rails?
Excuse me archangle, but for your information not only can the Harrier ll fight, it kicks Hornet AND Falcon ass. Vectoring thrust in flight does wonders in aerial combat, ask any AV-8er or an honest pilot that faced one. Also, supersonic flight is only useful if you are making a couple hundred mile flight to the battle area, Marine Corp policy is to have the Harriers as close to the battle area as possible. I understand such a policy would be quite a hardship on the USAF, not to have an "O" Club on station, or the USN, not to have 3 hot meals, clean sheets, or porn on the closed circuit tv . . . but making sacrifices to defend the good ol' USA is something a FEW GOOD MEN do. Obviously you don't know about that, bitch.
Could you please cite examples of Harriers using VIFF in combat. As far as I am aware, it has never been used as initial testing showed the procedure to be too complicated for a high-stress combat environment.
Regards & all.
Thomas L. Nielsen
Luxembourg
There are none, not in the Falklands or ever since.
Black Owl. I 've been directly involved in both F-35 and F/A-18 programs. Upon first reading of your paper I tend to agree.While I believe your discussion of making Harrier more stealthy belies a shallow understanding of LO technology applications ,your other arguments look good. Stealth is great but if you survive long enough to get there and don't bring that much in terms of fire power what was the point of the exercise?
I guess I'm in the camp of more and better Hornets skipping the F-35 and applying key technologies to a smaller buys of true game changing break-through aircraft. That is, every few years (less than 10) roll out a an aircrfat with eye watering capabilities ( think F-117 and B-2) in just enough numbers to keep potential adversaries shaking their heads.
This might seem minor, but can this blog stop using the word "yup"? It's in nearly every post and adds nothing. Indeed a simple search of this blog turns up five hits for "yup" in just the last.. five days.
They could always switch to "yep", if you would prefer
This blog has a lot of random phrases that it over uses.
yup
The first Harriers were purchased in the 1980s, but most crashed. The average age in the fleet is only15 years, so given most aircraft fly for 30+ years, this is not news, except to expose the myth that the F-35B is needed now.
Yeah, we can always get new pilots. At least we won't have to buy a new plane type. =P
I'm critical of the F-35 too, but using the harrier for too long has costs of its own, human toll being one of them.
In all fairness we dont know how good a record the F-35B will be able to sustain. But it is odd how the Osprey gets attacks for its safety record (when its one of the safest aircraft in the fleet), yet the Harrier seems to skate by (and it holds one of the worst records, if not the worst in terms of aircraft lost to accidents).
That said, the Harrier cannot be compared to the F-35B if we are to look at this fairly. The F-35B is designed for a completly differant mission set, one that requires differant capabilities than the harrier. In my opinion there is room for both aircraft in the inventory, differant mission sets, differant capabilities. No sense in throwing away a useable aircraft if you can still use it (if you have the money to operate them that is).
I was with the Harriers for 6 years, 1977 to 1983, A modles from the UK. The first Harriers were purchased in the early 70's rite off the shelf from England. Aside from that, the word MOST is inaccurate. There were crashes and most of them were unfortunately pilot issue's. Not an easy a/c to fly at all. Anyway I am glad to see it still in there doing its part.
Be a part of that list old classics like the A-10. But by no means a B-52 baby.
I know I will get a ton of thumbs downs but I really think that we should have the F-35b on those amphibious assault ships instead of the harrier.
That's the plan, eventually.
The F-35B might be overpriced as hell but it's still a better aircraft then the Harrier.
agreed. and who cares if its overoriced? were a worldwide superpower here, people!
besides, give it a couple years to increase production and buyers and the price will be cut in half
Good the AV-8B doesn't need to go now and is a good plane for CAS like the A-10 is. Over all with BIG cuts hitting and the DoD blowing more money into R&D than 5th gen jet production F-15s F-18E/Fs and Harriers and even A-10s may fly beyond 2025!
There nothing really in foreign production that could be surpass the Eagle currently. And its a shame the Brits lost there Navy and RAF Harriers when they had no replacement for it not they have carriers w/o planes that's just sad.
The "Super Harrier", as Black Owl said, is a very cabable aircraft. Indeed, a major upgrade would be best than wait for F-35B. In this model, you Black, won my opinion.
But here I'm talking about the Brits. This is what I think the should have done. Stay with Harriers on HMS Illustrious and Ark Royal. Maintain them both together with Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales, those with F-35C.
But wait, Royal Navy with four aircraft carriers? I'm dreaming.
So, all the veteren aircraft are increasingly revealed to be expected to fly for longer and longer; the F35 is increasingly pushed out into the future; and concepts and planning for a 6th gen aircraft fleet trundles on.
Just how many of the planned thousands of cheap Lightnings will actually be produced before the next multi-purpose, all singing and dancing, Swiss-army-knife aircraft is due to roll off the production line?
Its the same as the Navy's shipbuildilng plan. The procurement in the near term is outpaced by retirement of hulls, and only at the end of the ten year plan do we catch up and overtake the loss rate. Which was the same plan they had at the beginning of the last ten year plan.
Basically, the pentagon has spent itself to death, and is counting on a future hike in defense spending to get to where it needs to be. I wouldn't hold my breath. By then, the costs for Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, and the new national health care law will be even more difficult to ignore.
I hope I am wrong, but the writing on the wall points to us as a declining military power.
hello from a brit. i think the us must accept that it will decline in its outright military power (numbers of hulls, planes if you will) – but what this actually means is that you will go from your current overwhelming position of superiority – able to operate anywhere against anyone – to more focused, regional superiority (eg. pacific) and with more reliance on allies in other regions (such as nato and so forth). much like the position of the royal navy around 1900, where it had been larger than all other navies combined (i exaggerate a little!) to then adopting a 2-power standard (then 1.5 and so on) and so on. i don't think you will lose the position of no. 1 military power for a long, long time, just the fact that unilateral operations and power projection will be more limited. it's the question of defence (no one will be able to attack and defeat the usa) versus attack (countries will be able to resist us operations against them).
I think you've got a point. I was thinking earlier that we could stop being such a top dog and we could work more together with NATO, UN, etc. The problem being that NATO and the UN are run by councils, which historically speaking, don't get all that much done. We can't go back to the Caesar temporary dictatorship, but I'm worried about too much talk and too little done in the not so distant future. Maybe another solution will present itself, who knows?
the U.N. NEVER gets anything done, as it is horrifically corrupt. As for NATo, most NATO members barely even have navies.
Considering JSF is already coordinated with overseas customers, and is no better in terms of progress…
The only problem with that plan is, as the UK declined in world hegemony, the US expanded into the vacuum, in a coordinated and cooperative way. Alliances or no, it was the British Empire, followed by the hand off to the American empire (such as it is) that guaranteed freedom of the seas and a certain shape to world order. Who do we pass the torch to? There is no other nation or group of nations that has the close cultural and linguistic ties that will share so much of our foreign policy outlook. Wrangling a dissimilar group of allies to a common foreign policy is sometimes impossible, and getting them to agree on one that most benefits the US is almost impossible if we don't have the leverage of the largest military to back up that policy.
F35-B are a pretty significant step up from the Harrier… capable of carrying more than double the weight. Keep the AV-8s until the F35-Bs are sufficient in numbers, but then replace it.
We have done so much with so little for so long, we can now do anything with almost nothing. Semper Fi!
Ooooh Rahhhh. Semper Fi, Jarhead.
One Two Three Four, We Love The Marine Corps.
Love the comment "with plenty of maintenance"… I mean really there are only so many hours in a day… Already squadrons are taxed to keep these aircraft up and flying… You can only fix a part so many times until ultimately it is beyond repair…
And don't say we never support your defense budget…
Actually its a big "thankyou" for all those AIM-9L s you let us have in 1982!
As a civil service AV8 sheetmetal mech at Cherry Point, i like and dont like this idea…..like as it will be job security for me, dont like as i do not see this airframe lasting without major mods…..we already are promising these airplanes back to the fleet in 150 days after a ful PMI-1 maintenance schedule….add AFC's and that time multiplies, not that i mind, but the fleet love having their aircraft on deck so to speak.
The USMC gets garbage and can do amazing things with them. Their budgets is one of the smallest and unlike the Army and Air Force they have a can do attitude. Semper Fi
Oh please, like the AAAV was garbage. The marines wanted to use a glorified DUKW in ground combat against enemies with RPGs and IEDs. Marines paid the price for claiming the role of second land army, but not having the proper gear for it.
Just bring back the A-4M Skyhawk. It was cheap and dependable and maintenance was easy. Besides that, it was a ball to fly! Semper Fidelis!
As for bringing back the original A-4M (and a great machine that was), it will be one MOFO of a job, considering that you'd need to start up production of everything from scratch.
As for a "modern equivalent" to the A-4M, that might be a good idea. But then on the other hand, wasn't that what sort of what the F-18 and, to some extent, the F-35, were initially supposed to be? Until feature creep set in, that is….
Regards & all,
Thomas L. Nielsen
Luxembourg
Not to be correcting anyone, but I was with the first marine squadron to get the Harrier, and it was definitely not in the 1980"s. That was the AV8B. The AV8A's were purchased from Britain in the early 70's. I was working on them in 1972 with VMA-513, the very first squadron of Harriers. I was then transferred to VMA-542, the second squadron when it was first formed. VMA-513 only had six of their 20 aircraft when I joined them. So I think they have been flying for quite a while. SEMPER FI !!!
I was with 513 from 77 to 83 at Yuma. Loved it.
Ooohhh Rahhh. Jarhead. I was with VMA(AW)-224 in '72 and our pilots as well as of other A-6 Squadrons in MAG-14 were beginning to learn to fly the AV-8A's. Have seen some very nasty flics of mishaps in the Ready Room with other pilots watchin'. Sgt. W. Rusty Lane
Agree on your timing. We had them drop in on us (no pun intended) at MCAS Cherry Point in 1972-3. Quite a contrast with the Hercs and T-28's on the flightline!
Semper Fi!
RO
I recall being on a med cruise and the AV8's flew ZERO hours the whole seven months. Grounded due to some engine BS>///
- I know it's all political and such but HOW DO WE SPEND ZILLIONS OF TAX PAYER DOLLARS ON OTHER COUNTRIES AND FALL SHORT WHEN IT COMES TO OUR OWN DEFENSE ( MARINE CORPS ) ???
The 20+ I did in the Corps opened my eyes to many examples of tax payer ( my own included ) pissed away on foreign governments/military BS… Gonna fly the harriers until the end of the world no doubt.
shitter pilots rule!
Hooray the UK RAF to the rescue AGAIN!!!!!
What Squadron you in, Marine? I was in Marine (All Weather) Attack Squadron 224 at MCAS, FMFLant, Cherry Point, NC from 1970 to '72. Had the A-6 Intruders & some KA-6D tankers that went aboard the Coral Sea to Viet Nam, Republic Of.
The harrier is the biggest POS aircraft we have right now.
"It is more than twice the lifetime accident rate of the Air Force's F-16 Fighting Falcon, a single-engine tactical aircraft like the Harrier that has been in service since 1979. It is nearly five times higher than the A-10 Warthog, an Air Force attack plane that has been flying since 1976. And it is more than 3 1/2 times the rate of the F/A-18 Hornet, a twin-engine combat plane flown since 1980 by the Navy and Marines that, like the Harrier, operates largely off ships."
http://articles.latimes.com/2002/dec/15/nation/na…
The apache has a little piece of armor right next to the pilot that barely covers the side of the pilot which is the same for the Cobra. The A10 is not a fighter or multirole aircraft its only purpose is attack. The f18, f16, f15 dont have armor and are venerable fighter/attack aircraft. The F35 will be a great aircraft everyone stop hating so much you dont know shit.
The F/A-18 series has ruggedness in mind since it was made to land on a carrier and it has two engines. During the first Gulf War the legacy Hornets were able to take a hit from a MANPAD SAM missile and still make it back to base. The F-35 has one engine and it's ability to stand up to small arms fire is questionable.
Ruggedness in mind? You find out it doesnt have armor so you throw that bs? Yea the F35 has one engine which could be a problem out at sea but look how many other single engine navy aircraft there have been. And all new aircraft are questionable to how much damage they can take. Leave the decisions to the men in charge.
Screw the Hornet. I want The A-6 back.
The Harrier is also a far more complicated aircraft than the aircraft you've mentioned. And it should also be mentioned that while the Harrier does operate largely off of ships like an F-18, the F-18 can't fly off of the same ships that Harriers do, in fact, I don't think that any other combat aircraft in our inventory can take off and land on an amphib.
If the USN and USAF flew their aircraft as often as the USMC flies it's jets, they would easily double their accident/crash rate.
Okay, you're missing my point. I'm saying that the F-35 can't do CAS, which it will be required to do if it replaces the aircraft that it is supposed. The F/A-18 was built to withstand punishment to operate off austere airfields and carriers. This in turn also proved to be great for its CAS role. The F-35, is weak since it's made out of sensitive stealthy materials that are highly flammable and require extremely long maintenance hours. We switched to duel engined fighters for a reason after the experience of using single engined fighters. Engine flame out always has been a risk and a duel engine fighter puts all its engine flame out eggs in one basket. I am leaving the decisions to the men in charge, but I'm not going to sit by and not question their reason.
*I meant to say a single engine fighter puts all its engine flame out eggs in one basket.
This single engine stuff is BS. It's not 1950. Jet tech has come a long way. Nobody builds 10 enigned B-36's or 8 engined B-52's anymore either. The list of sucessfull single engine jets is a rather long one.
Depends on how you define "fan of". I think it looks great, and I am generally in favour of shiny new things in the aerospace industry.
Also, I have no doubt that the F-35 can eventually turn out to be a great aircraft, A, B and C versions alike. The key words being "can" and "eventually".
I am not a "fan of" the F-35 in the sense that IF it is not cancelled, and IF it becomes available for non-US users within the foreseeable future, it will be at a price where no-one will be able to afford enough of them.
So yes, I am a fan of the F-35 as a Shiny New Thing. I am not a fan of the F-35 as a combat machine, not due to any inherent lack of capabilities, but due to availability and price issues.
Regards & all,
Thomas L. Nielsen
Luxembourg (expat Dane)