The Government announced this week that it is to retire the 80-strong fleet of Harriers with immediate effect
Photo: Christopher Furlong
Posted on 10/23/2010 6:18:02 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
A fighter falls prey to politics
The Coalition is to scrap the Harrier jump jet, while sparing the less effective Tornado. Little wonder the pilots are up in arms, says Con Coughlin.
By Con Coughlin
They have dedicated their careers to flying one of the world’s most iconic jet fighters. They have flown hundreds of combat missions in Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Iraq and Afghanistan again. But from now on the elite group of pilots that flew the Harrier jump jet find themselves kicking their heels on the tarmac with no planes to fly.
Of all the painful decisions announced at the conclusion of the Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) this week, the announcement that the Government is to retire the 80-strong fleet of Harriers with immediate effect has been the bitterest pill to swallow, especially for the pilots who fly them.
“Betrayal – that is the only word to describe our emotions right now,” one of the Harrier’s leading pilots told me when I met him shortly after David Cameron had made the announcement to the Commons.
“Every one of us feels this great sense of betrayal that we have been risking our lives for our country, and this is our reward.”
Mr Cameron witnessed first-hand the visceral anger the Harrier pilots feel over the decision to abandon the Harrier fleet to save money when he addressed members of the Armed Forces working at the Permanent Joint Headquarters at Northwood. There he encountered Lt Cdr Kris Ward, 37, who has flown more than 140 combats in Afghanistan and also happens to be the son of Cdr Nigel “Sharkey” Ward, who
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
The Government announced this week that it is to retire the 80-strong fleet of Harriers with immediate effect
Photo: Christopher Furlong
National suicide.
A terrible price to pay for all those years of socialism.
- JP
The Tornado is unfairly maligned in the tagline as being "less effective." My initial reaction was, "less effective at what? What is it that you are looking to do?"
I do agree that the Harrier is more effective than the Tornado in the particular conditions of Afghanistan. But if you want a long range penetration strike fighter, which one do you honestly pick?
Yes the Harrier did well in the Falklands. But was that really more of a function of the proficiency of the British pilots and the fact that the Argentines were at the edge of their range tether? And, let's be clear-- the use of the Harrier for air cover is making a virtue of a necessity. The Tornado doesn't fly from carriers because the British carriers are too small for that.
The USMC loves their Harriers, but they don't pretend that the planes are good at everything.
The Harrier is a better all-around aircraft pick, particularly for a country interested in paring down is overall defense expenditures. It’s an all-weather, multirole aircraft capable of strike, CAS, air interdiction and fighter missions, whereas the Tornado is more of a single-role (strike) aircraft.
The message that I get from this article is that Britain is more interested in getting out of the brushfire wars business than in maintaining a cost-effective force capable of any mission.
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As for your point that the Harrier is more affodable, why do so few forces operate it? The RAF, RN, and USMC are the only users to my recollection. The Tornado has seen much wider service.
Don't mistake me here-- I would rather that the Brits keep a viable aircraft carrier force. But let's be clear about the options.
By your logic, the Brits would ditch their Apaches in order to use cheaper helicopters.
The Brits are upgrading to the F-35C (carrier version). The Harrier is very long in the tooth, and past time for replacement.
“Variant” being the operative word. The Tornado was from it’s inception optimised for strike. Look at its loadout and avionics: 98% attack munitions with PAVE systems, GMR and TFR with the GMR as the primary attack sensor. It was designed from the ground up for what the Brits call “blind first-pass attack IDS”: interdiction/strike in hostile territory at low altitude, which is why its variable wing has the highest lift coefficient of any aircraft . Can it fire an AIM-9 at another plane? Sure it can. So can an A-10.
With respect to affordability, I meant that the Harrier is cheaper to operate because it was designed for a wider variety of roles: in the overall spectrum of RAF operating costs, keeping the Harrier would not neccessitate the use of a second type of aircraft, whereas keeping the Tornado would.
There are no Tornado variants that serve in the air superiority role: the Tornado AVF is designed for CAP, primarily as a stand-off platform against bombers.
The Tornado doesn’t fly from carriers because the British carriers are too small for that.
***And your point is...?
Yet another icon of the glorious golden age of British jet aviation falls by the wayside. What a sad day.
The Gloster Meteor was the first, and Concorde was the most prominent, but there were so many others. The De Havilland Vampire; the English Electric Canberra, which is still in service with NASA due to its very high service ceiling; and the Hawker Hunter, which served with distinction in 19 air forces.
Every British schoolboy of the 50’s and 60’s remembers the very successful V-series bombers, the Handley-Page Victor, the Vickers Valiant, and the gorgeous Avro Vulcan, which I was lucky enough to see in flight once before it was retired.
Then there was the magnificent English Electric Lightning. This air defense interceptor was rather ugly, but went like a scalded cat. It was the first aircraft in the world capable of supercruise, i.e. level supersonic flight without afterburners. Few planes were ever as beloved by their pilots as the Lightning.
A more obscure triumph of British aeronautical engineering was the ill-fated TSR-2, a tactical bomber which was miles ahead of its competitors from the US and the Soviet Union, but fell victim to Whitehall machinations. It was said of the TSR2, “All modern aircraft have four dimensions: span, length, height and politics. TSR-2 only got the first three right.”
The cancellation of TSR-2 was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and the British aviation industry has never recovered. The loss of the Harrier is another major milestone in this sad decline.
At least the Marines will keep flying the AV-8, and the Spaniards are also using them on their new pocket carrier.
The Typhoon which is replacing the Tornado.
The Tornado doesn't fly from carriers because the British carriers are too small for that.
The Tornado doesn't operate from carriers because it can't not because the boat is too small.
Poor recollection. You omitted Spain, Italy, India and Thailand.
The Tornado has seen much wider service.
Great Britain, Germany, Italy and Saudi Arabia.
I think his point is that the Falklands are eventually screwed.
Is that the new name for Greenwich Village?
Military politics causes more losses than anything. Incompentence of the Generals is mostly related to politics.
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