Strictly movie / film plot here:
A C5 carrying one or more Harriers is hijacked, the miscreants start them up, depressurize the ‘mother ship’ then open the rear doors
Pointing the stolen Harrier towards this exit they accelerate inside the hold and depart
the aircraft
All of the above is quite possible but then things become problematic, once clear of the C5 the fighter will instantly be ‘immersed’ in
for example a 300 Kias airstream but in a tail first position
Not ideal for retaining control, I used the Harrier in this story so I could put forward the possibility of using nozzle vectoring to assist in stability, on reflection however I don’t think this would make a difference
Even if our Pilot manages to build up 100 knots prior to exit he will still be going backwards at 200 knots in the relative airstream and I doubt the nozzles would have any effect
The other idea is to let they Harrier drop out the back with the engine running and it’s instantly facing the ‘right way’ into the airstream
For the sake of this plot we are disregarding any local aerodynamic interference by the C5
Thoughts ?