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Posted on 03/20/2016 10:32:15 PM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
NEW DELHI: They were always a sight to behold, a force to reckon with. Fighters landing vertically, akin to helicopters, with ear-splitting roars on a moving airfield despite being fixed-wing. It left even the usually phlegmatic Manmohan Singh slightly nonplussed during the "PM's day at sea" in 2006. Similar was the case of other politicians, before and after him, like A B Vajpayee and L K Advani.
But the old must give way to the new. Ahead of the 56-year-old aircraft carrier INS Viraat's retirement later this year, the Navy has bid adieu to its eyeball-grabbing Sea Harrier "jump jets" after 33 years of yeomen service.
The force, after all, now has its first supersonic fighters in 30 MiG-29Ks - out of the 45 contracted from Russia for over $2 billion - for INS Vikramaditya and the under-construction indigenous carrier INS Vikrant.
Navy inducted 30 of the British-origin Sea Harriers from 1983 onwards, but only 11 "air frames" are left now due to old age, lack of spares and cannibalisation as well as accidents over the years. "They have flown their last. The six Sea Harriers on board INS Viraat, which has returned to Mumbai from her final operational journey to the International Fleet Review last month, disembarked from the carrier on March 6," said an officer.
The 11 Sea Harriers are now been mothballed at naval air station INS Hansa in Goa before being distributed as museum pieces to different establishments. "Their pilots are going for career advancement courses or MiG-29K conversion training," he said.
Interestingly, Sea Harriers were part of INAS 300 (Indian naval air squadron 300) nicknamed the 'White Tigers'. And much like the feline genetic oddity, a Sea Harrier stood apart, capable as it was of VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) operations.
"Harriers were certainly unconventional in their vertical landing, even though they usually took-off from the angled ski-jump on INS Viraat. With time, their production was stopped in the UK. The British Royal Navy also retired its Sea Harriers in 2006," said another officer.
The White Tigers squadron will now hibernate till it's re-commissioned with MiG-29Ks for INS Vikrant, which is slated to be ready by 2018-19. Incidentally, INS Vikramaditya's MiG-29K squadron INAS 303 is christened 'Black Panthers'.
Though the Sea Harriers had an operational speed of 640 knots or 1,186 kmph, with a range of around 800 nautical miles, they fell short of exceeding the speed of sound at Mach 1 or 1,235 kmph. They did undergo a "limited upgrade" some years ago, including being fitted with Israeli Elta EL/M-2032 multi-mode fire control radars and 'Derby' beyond visual range air-to-air missiles, but have outlived their utility. "MiG-29Ks give us a four-fold capability jump over Sea Harriers," an officer said.
Made most famous by True Lies (Ah-nold’s best movie).
The drifting in the parking lot while whacking pllice cars was a scene for the ages!
You have to wonder about the Osprey vs. the Harrier in real combat conditions.
“You have to wonder about the Osprey vs. the Harrier in real combat conditions.”
Well, actually, you really don’t. An Osprey is an unarmed cargo helicopter, a Sea Harrier is a jet fighter with missiles and cannons.
The stupidity of not having a modern “Harrier” capability fighter jet is that Mig 29s, F16/18/22/35’s can’t land on a highway or on a hard desert surface and be ready for instance combat once it takes off in a hostile land.
In places like Afghanistan and Iraq, putting fighters like the Harrier in dispersed areas would give friendly forces on-station combat aircraft instead of having to wait for carrier-based planes or major airport base-planes to take off and fly hundreds of miles to a target or to support embattled ground troops.
Also, they have the jump-up combat tactic of staying on the ground or hovering just above it until a good target comes into view/range, and then jumping up, firing, and disappearing below ground level vision.
I know this happened in at least one war, or maybe two. Thinking of the Falkland Island war of about 1983 and possible Gulf War I (Desert Storm).
Our Air Force is trying to get rid of the A-1 Warthog, one of the most destructive anti-tank, anti-vehicle, and anti-bunker aircraft in the war.
Then the Harrier was junked (I think we bought some British ones for parts, or was it the Israelis (who always think years ahead of us).
The Navy and/or Air Force dropped teaching pilots and sailors Morse Code, a very valuable tool when other means of communication are unavailable (See the move “Independence Day” and the one with Bruce Willis in which they used CB radio frequencies because the more common wavelengths were kaput.)
A couple of late friends of mine who were in the Hanoi Hilton showed us how Morse Code could be used, right in front of the enemies’ propaganda camers. Ad. Jeremiah Denton blinked “tortured” to the world when they used him as a showcase figure of how well they were treating American POWS.
Jerry, a friend of mine, was one smart man. So were the other POWS who used Morse Code tappings on their cell walls and doors to talk to the other “guests” in the -5 Star hotel known as the Hanoi Hilton and torture center.
American leaders seem to have a policy of if it works, get rid of it and buy something experimental, very expensive, and full of bugs to replace it immediately.
Believe me, this attitude is rampage in certain parts of the US Government. I’ve been fighting it for over 20 years, winning some battles but still encountering sheer incompetence and stupidity “beyond your greatest imagination”.
Back in late 1970, when I was on the USS Fresno (LST1182), we were enroute to Vietnam for my second deployment. We stopped in Okinawa, and practiced landing Harriers on our postage stamp flight deck, so that when we were in ‘Nam, any Harrier that couldn’t make it back to its primary landing field would have an alternative landing site. Although we didn’t land any Harriers during that or my subsequent deployment in ‘71, we did land some pretty shot up Apaches and Cobras.
The scene in in the Leslie Nielsen movie Spy Hard using a Harrier was another good one
Apaches came into service 15 years later.
“American leaders seem to have a policy of if it works, get rid of it and buy something experimental, very expensive, and full of bugs to replace it immediately.”
Interesting and thought-provoking comment
There is a STOVL version of the F-35.
My bad, you’re right. There was another helicopter we landed,in addition to the Cobras, but it wasn’t the Apache. I disrecall what it was now, but we did land some pretty shot-up machines. I used to have super-8 film of the landings of the Harrier, and at least one film of one of the Cobras, but over the years, in one of my many moves, I lost those films. :(
Harriers weren’t in use then either.
>>Well, actually, you really don’t. An Osprey is an unarmed cargo helicopter<<
MUI the Osprey was to replace both the Harrier VTL and the various incarnations of the Chinook troop copters.
Apparently MUI improperly placed?
The Osprey was to replace the CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter.
The F-35B is to replace the Harrier, and the STO/VL capability of the F-35B is responsible in large part in making the entire F-35 program so late and over budget.
CH-46:
V-22B:
AV-8B:
F-35B"
In 1970 I was at the Naval Air Systems Command in DC when the first Harriers came to town.
I rode over to an airfield with a bus load of admirals and saw the first one. As a graduate Aerospace Engineer I was totally blown away by these airplanes and so were the brass.
It was a different country then
In the 1987 James Bond movie “The Living Daylights”, the post credits opening scene has Bond smuggling a Russian defector through a natural gas pipeline from Czechoslovakia to Austria to a waiting Harrier inside a building and from there to England.
Of course, but there’s something to be said for:
Supersonic capability.
Long-range capability.
Significant ordinance capability.
Significant BVR and dogfight capability.
Harriers were overrated.
They were rarely deployed forward on unimproved surfaces, and then only as a token demonstration.
Oh, and the MIG-29s were DESIGNED to operate from unimproved runways, roads, etc. The intakes actually close up and draw from the TOP, preventing the ingestion of roadway, field, farm debris.
Or more precisely: "If it works, get rid of it and pay off a defense contractor to make a new, buggy one so that the cost overruns will guarantee my own cushy post-government/military lobbying job for decades." :)
I expect he meant Cobras and Hueys.
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