How the Royal Navy launched fully loaded Sea Harrier jets off a curved ramp in the 1982 Falklands campaign, and why the Argentine air force never planned for it. This is the story of the ski jump ramp, the Pegasus vectored thrust engine, and the small carriers that were supposedly too short to fly fast jets from.

In 1966 Britain cancelled its last true aircraft carrier
Sixteen years later a curved steel ramp, the idea of one Royal Navy engineer, let a few Sea Harriers hold the sky over the South Atlantic and win an air war Britain should have lost
This is how the engineering, not the legend, decided the Falklands air campaign

TOPICS COVERED
› How the ski jump ramp flings a fully loaded jet off a deck far too short for a normal take off
› Lieutenant Commander Douglas Taylor and the runway in the sky
› The Royal Aircraft Establishment trials at Bedford and test pilot John Farley
› The Sea Harrier explained, Pegasus vectored thrust, Blue Fox radar and the all aspect Sidewinder
› Why the cancellation of Britain's carriers in 1966 shaped the entire campaign
› HMS Hermes, HMS Invincible and the ships the Navy was too nervous to call carriers
› Argentina's strategic miscalculation and Admiral Jorge Anaya
› The first day of air combat on the first of May 1982 and Paul Barton's opening victory
› The viffing legend, and what actually won the air battles
› The range and fuel trap that gave Argentine Mirages and Skyhawks only minutes over the islands
› Brigadier General Crespo and the switch to low level attacks
› The bomb fusing flaw that so nearly changed the outcome
› Sharkey Ward, Andy Auld and David Morgan
› Sortie rates, serviceability and how one curved ramp made all of it possible

MAJOR RESEARCH SOURCES
› Imperial War Museum
› The National Archives, Kew
› Fleet Air Arm records and the Fleet Air Arm Officers Association
› First hand accounts from Sea Harrier pilots and Royal Navy commanders
› Contemporary and official histories of the 1982 South Atlantic campaign

FURTHER READING
› Sea Harrier Over the Falklands, A Maverick at War, by Commander Nigel Ward
› One Hundred Days, The Memoirs of the Falklands Battle Group Commander, by Admiral Sandy Woodward
› Harrier 809, by Rowland White
› Air War South Atlantic, by Jeffrey Ethell and Alfred Price
› Falklands, The Air War, by Rodney Burden and the British Aviation Research Group

If your family served with the Royal Navy or the Fleet Air Arm in the South Atlantic in 1982, leave their name and their ship or squadron in the comments, so the memory stays alive

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Historical documentary for educational purposes. Archival material is presented in its historical context.

#Falklands #SeaHarrier #RoyalNavy #MilitaryHistory #Harrier