Imagine the co-ordination of nozzle position and power setting along with getting the pitch angle correct and retracting the gear all at the same time.; it was the best Harrier takeoff I had witnessed.
Actually, the Farley Climb was quite an easy manoeuvre to perform, as long as you did it correctly. The RAF outlawed it but the RN continued to do it in the SHAR and I was still doing it in the early 90’s:
Full power (+ water) and establish vertical acceleration, retract gear and smooothly raise the nose to 60 degrees whilst nozzling to 30 degrees. Then carefully trim the nozzles to 20 degrees and raise the nose to 70 degrees, keeping the ADD at zero. You can then throttle back a touche if you need to contain the JPT. Great fun! Just don’t nozzle to less than 20 or let the ADD increase (+ve or -ve) before you get to 90kts.
Mog