Goodbye Harrier old friend

TheMightyTen · 15 Dec 2010 at 10:25

Well today sees the last operational flight of Harrier as it leaves RAF Cottesmore and flies over various military bases.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11996936

I'm not debating here, the rights and wrongs of the scrapping of Harrier

but just a heads up and and a chance for people to put down their memories of this ground breaking and venerable aircraft

I spent a good chunk of my life growing up in Gütersloh in Germany, my father was based at Mansergh Barracks, then home to 40th Field Regiment Royal Artillery, and just up the road was RAF Gütersloh where No.3 Squadren was based. My childhood was just constantly occupied with the noise of 3 Sqn operating it's GR3 and GR5s overhead.

For us as kids it just never got boring as soon as we heard the scream we were outside looking to see where they were and to this day whenever I saw a Harrier operating at airshows I still got that same tingle and joy from it.

For me? such a sad day today

ThomasTheTankEngine · 15 Dec 2010 at 10:56

I remember seeing one at farnborough air show. Literally the loudest thing I have ever heard in my life. :cool:

Cosimo · 15 Dec 2010 at 10:59

I didn’t realise that it’s been around for 41 years. Shame to see it go.

shadow_boxer · 15 Dec 2010 at 11:01

Yeah, sad day. Really used to look forward to seeing it at various airshows. Remember the first time I saw one, RAF Conningsby in 1993, aged 7. Absolutely deafened me and loved it ever since.

RAF Fairford at the RIAA July 2010.

Cosimo · 15 Dec 2010 at 11:03

jimbob27 said:
I remember seeing one at farnborough air show. Literally the loudest thing I have ever heard in my life.

Noisy it was:

arknor · 15 Dec 2010 at 11:03

its crazy to think the technology was around in the 1960's to have a fairly safe aircraft that could hover like the harrier did.

must have been an awful feeling for the pilots having to train in them for the first time, werent the first versions notoriously hard to get to grips with?

the test pilots must have had balls of steel

Abraham · 15 Dec 2010 at 11:07

so does this mean some will end up on the open market?

platypus · 15 Dec 2010 at 11:08

Very sad indeed

.

A stupid decision too, given that it would have saved more to scrap some Tornados, and left us with a better response aircraft.

shadow_boxer · 15 Dec 2010 at 11:10

Abraham said:
so does this mean some will end up on the open market?

Probably be sold to the middle east or Iran.

arknor · 15 Dec 2010 at 11:11

Abraham said:
so does this mean some will end up on the open market?

some have before anyway? america sells off a lot of its old planes doesnt it? but with all the guns and missile bays etc removed obviously

CircleFaust · 15 Dec 2010 at 11:11

simulatorman said:
I didn’t realise that it’s been around for 41 years. Shame to see it go.

same here, it was always just a cutting edge plane to me when mentioned

the F-35 looks a worthy replacement

TheMightyTen · 15 Dec 2010 at 11:13

platypus said:
Very sad indeed .

A stupid decision too, given that it would have saved more to scrap some Tornados, and left us with a better response aircraft.

I think Fleet Air Arm were entirely out-manouvered and hoodwinked by RAF top brass on this one

Mad_Jay · 15 Dec 2010 at 11:13

Various Harriers took part in an amazing 16 ship fly past over different RAF bases the other day. I missed it due to leave but a friend took this photo.

platypus · 15 Dec 2010 at 11:15

TheMightyTen said:
I think Fleet Air Arm were entirely out-manouvered and hoodwinked by RAF top brass on this one

Undoubtedly, it is sad that it made sense to the RAF brass to save their mens jobs rather than provide a fitting service for the UK.

TheMightyTen · 15 Dec 2010 at 11:19

platypus said:
Undoubtedly, it is sad that it made sense to the RAF brass to save their mens jobs rather than provide a fitting service for the UK.

Unfortunately that battle between the two then three major arms of the British armed services has been going on since time in memorial which has always left us with a fractured approach to our defence.

Abraham · 15 Dec 2010 at 11:43

arknor said:
some have before anyway? america sells off a lot of its old planes doesnt it? but with all the guns and missile bays etc removed obviously

I know the US sells off a lot of it's planes, so does Russia, never seen a Harrier for sale though

Mobius 1 · 15 Dec 2010 at 11:56

Abraham said:
I know the US sells off a lot of it's planes, so does Russia, never seen a Harrier for sale though

i remember a un operational harrier going up for sale on ebay a while back.

ubersonic · 15 Dec 2010 at 11:57

Cruiser said:
the F-35 looks a worthy replacement

At $100 million per plane it damn well should be lol, this is very sad news imo as this was one of my favourite planes growing up. Though you can understand the mentality behind it, as long as we don't follow America into any more deserts we don't really need a large army, a defensive force should be enough.

KNiVES · 15 Dec 2010 at 12:06

Mad_Jay said:
Various Harriers took part in an amazing 16 ship fly past over different RAF bases the other day. I missed it due to leave but a friend took this photo.

Look at the coordination on that... phenomenal stuff.

^TANK^ · 15 Dec 2010 at 12:11

Goodbye to a marvelous piece of British engineering, even though its forty years old I feel its looks still have a modern look to it given its age.