[Timocrat]

Your points are well taken. Read the biography of Col.John Boyd, probably the premier fighter pilot and tactical theoretician in the USAF during the fifties and sixties. He once complained that not enough pilots were dying. One of the tasks of military aviators is "pushing the envelope" and when you do that bad things can happen especially when you are implementing a radical new technology.

Incidentally the Brits produced the first Harrier but the Marine Corps developed new tactics for using the aircraft which they taught the Brits who used thenm in the Falklands; such as swivelling one of the vents so the aircraft could turn on a dime.

[SMEDLEYBUTLER]

That technique is called VIFFing; Vectoring In Forward Flight. If I recall correctly, all the movable exhaust nozzles, four on the Harrier II, are linked, so if one is moved they all move.

[pfflier]

such as swivelling one of the vents so the aircraft could turn on a dime.

Well, kinda...The maneuver is called "vertical in flight vectoring" or "VIFFING" which allows the aircraft to immediately translate from its flight axis (usually up or down). It is unique and hard to counter during air combat maneuvering. It can also be like hitting the brakes. Literally an in-flight stop.

AV-8's have acquited themselves well in air to air combat simulations at interservice combat training.

This LA Times piece is an old rehash from a 60 minutes hatchet job done many years ago.

Also ignored (typically), is the advent of fly-by-wire system which stabilizes the aircraft independently of the pilot's inputs. An F-15 flew home and landed safely in the '70's missing a wing because the computers balanced the aircraft's assymetrical wing load. BTW The computer may have stabilized the craft but the pilot elected to stick with it when he had every right to "punch out". That is how we develop new and better technology, by learning, not quitting.

[Tommyjo]

"Incidentally the Brits produced the first Harrier but the Marine Corps developed new tactics for using the aircraft which they taught the Brits who used thenm in the Falklands; such as swivelling one of the vents so the aircraft could turn on a dime."

'Viffing'. Vectoring in Forward Flight has never been used in real combat and especially not during the Falklands campaign. Royal Navy pilot Sharkey Ward explains this in his book after the Falklands campaign.