They Scoffed at This Slow Jet, Then Came the Falklands
Historical Notes
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In 1982, the world scoffed at a slow British jet.It couldn't break the sound barrier. Its radar was a generation behind. It carried two missiles when American fighters carried eight. Argentina's military planners looked at it and called it — their words, preserved in post-war analysis published by the Marine Corps University — "an insignificant threat to the British task force."Ten weeks later, it had a perfect air-to-air combat record. Twenty kills. Zero losses. And every air force on earth wanted one.But here's the thing nobody tells you. The people who flew this aircraft — the pilots who strapped into its cockpit, the ground crews who patched it back together on freezing flight decks at three in the morning — they had their own name for it. Not a name of pride. A name that'll make sense later, when the triumph fades and the real cost comes into focus. A name of fear.This is the Harrier story that should've been told a long time ago.The Harrier exists because of one radical idea and one extraordinary engine. In the late 1950s, a team at Hawker Aircraft led by Sir Sydney Camm and engineer Ralph Hooper started chasing a concept most of the aviation world called impossible: a jet that could take off and land vertically, no runway required. What made it work was the Bristol Siddeley Pegasus, designed by Sir Stanley Hooker — an engine with four exhaust nozzles, two on each side of the fuselage, that could rotate from pointing backward for conventional flight to pointing straight down for vertical lift. Nothing else like it existed anywhere on earth.On 21 October 1960, the experimental P.1127 prototype made its first tethered hover at Dunsfold Aerodrome in Surrey. The ugly thing just lifted. Straight up. No runway, no catapult, no wire.
20 Comments
My grandad who also was in the RAF served on Lancaster Bombers and died when the aircraft crashed and was awarded the George V medal.
The war was conducted mainly at sea. The naval based harriers could provide close ground air support as well as air artillery against enemy ground positions and enemy aircraft. It was a quite superb multifunctional fighter jet aircraft.
The pilots were extremely talented
British Pilots didn't feel outnumbered, more like a target rich environment.
The French did thir part in telling the British which arms dealers had bought Exocet Missiles, MI6 had people buying up the world's supplies of the Missiles which prevented Argentina from purchasing more Missiles.
They Scoffed at This Slow Jet, Then Came the Falklands
Historical Notes
427,651 views
In 1982, the world scoffed at a slow British jet.It couldn't break the sound barrier. Its radar was a generation behind. It carried two missiles when American fighters carried eight. Argentina's military planners looked at it and called it — their words, preserved in post-war analysis published by the Marine Corps University — "an insignificant threat to the British task force."Ten weeks later, it had a perfect air-to-air combat record. Twenty kills. Zero losses. And every air force on earth wanted one.But here's the thing nobody tells you. The people who flew this aircraft — the pilots who strapped into its cockpit, the ground crews who patched it back together on freezing flight decks at three in the morning — they had their own name for it. Not a name of pride. A name that'll make sense later, when the triumph fades and the real cost comes into focus. A name of fear.This is the Harrier story that should've been told a long time ago.The Harrier exists because of one radical idea and one extraordinary engine. In the late 1950s, a team at Hawker Aircraft led by Sir Sydney Camm and engineer Ralph Hooper started chasing a concept most of the aviation world called impossible: a jet that could take off and land vertically, no runway required. What made it work was the Bristol Siddeley Pegasus, designed by Sir Stanley Hooker — an engine with four exhaust nozzles, two on each side of the fuselage, that could rotate from pointing backward for conventional flight to pointing straight down for vertical lift. Nothing else like it existed anywhere on earth.On 21 October 1960, the experimental P.1127 prototype made its first tethered hover at Dunsfold Aerodrome in Surrey. The ugly thing just lifted. Straight up. No runway, no catapult, no wire.