[Brad from Tennessee]

Thanks for the clarification. Writer might be confusing the Harrier vertical lift system with F-35B.

[tanknetter]

Thanks for the clarification. Writer might be confusing the Harrier vertical lift system with F-35B

You're welcome!

The leap from the Harrier to the Yak-38/Yak-141 is even larger tho. The Harrier's Pegasus engine uses rotating single-piece vectoring nozzles. The Yak-38 did use vectoring nozzles for the main engine (along with two liftjets forward), but the -141 used a 3-piece rotating rear nozzle assembly similar-looking to what the F-35 has.

There were a lot of different trials in the West with various lift technologies over the years - any design for a vertical-lift jet aircraft (especially one that's also supposed to be supersonic capable) is going to be very complex and involve a lot of trade-offs between the marrying of different technologies and capabilities.

The Yak-38 was probably closest (and they actually look very similar) to the German VAK-191, which used a combination of rotating nozzles (4) and lift jets (2 - positioned for and aft rather than clustered in a pair like with the Soviet jets). The McDonnell-Douglas JSF contender (which wasn't advanced to the flying demonstrations like the X-32 and X-35 were) had dedicated liftjets, but also (I think) rotating nozzles.