Maybe I'm just a cynic, but I do wonder if our government have been 'leaned-on' to get rid of the Harrier a la Miles M52 and TSR2, so that in years to come V/STOL can be portrayed in Hollywood as an all-American idea...
One of those marathon Discovery programmes a while back would have had you believe it was all down to McD.
BTW, Does anyone know why a three-ship Harrier formation did a Farnborough flypast a couple of weeks ago, followed by a singleton the following week? Obviously RAE Farnborough and NGTE Pyestock (next door) had a big part to play in the development, and I just wondered, who or what this might have been to acknowledge in particular.