U.S. Marines Will Keep The Harrier Around Longer As Hornet Fleet Crumbles

Foxtrot Alpha ^ | 04/05/2017 | Gary Wetzel

[Psalm 73]

"originally designed to have a 6,000-hour airframe...the Department of the Navy began to look at it differently than just a static number of hours the plane could fly before it was expected to wear out.
It was determined that the Harrier would be able to fly well beyond the original 6,000-hour estimate.
The Harrier inventory with this new criterion is estimated to have exhausted less than 40 percent of its useful life."

Now 6K flight-hours is only 40% of it's service life?
That's just damned scary, even if you've SLEP'd them.

[Hardastarboard]

Have you seen “Wild Hogs”? Talk about a complete, bitter, abject waste of money, time and talent. That movie could be a strong contender for worst film ever made.

[2001convSVT]

I would think that the A-10 would have been a better fit for Marines than anything else. With that said I have never heard of the Marines having used them.

[FreedomNotSafety]

Doesn’t it’s mission dictate its design? The marines wanted the VSTOL capability which means a more complex aircraft would s needed. More complexity means more opportunities for failure. If the goal is to not have the “highest accident rate”’ then only have one aircraft.

[spodefly]

BTTT

[xone]

They had a problem with stress cracks at the base of the vertical stabilizers. Turns out it was the Marine pilots frequently taking them to maximum-G turns to show their Marine-ness.

If the manuever was to 'max-G' in the NATOPS manual, then the airframes shouldn't have cracked. That is a crappy design. Flying to the limit without exceeding it isn't 'Marine-ness' it is 'pilotness'.