More questions about Harrier I or Harrier II:
Typical mission gross weight for ski jump takeoff was about how much?
About 30-32000lb ish
For takeoff, flaps would be set to how many degrees?
Flaps are at 25deg then schedule with nozzle rotation in STOL mode - if say 40noz used flaps move to 40ish degrees ,if max noz - 55noz is used (when lightweight) flaps will move all the way down to 62deg.
True airspeed just after departing the ramp and becoming airborne would be approximately what?
Say 85-95 kts, but its AOA that counts - should have been 12units.
What was the o-fficial appelation for the ski jump or ramp?
If you mean angle it was 12 degrees (started with lower angles when first introduced)
For each launch there would be a maximum and minimum launch distance- minimum is closest you could be to the ramp and still achieve safe launch speed on ramp exit, maximum is furthest away the jet could be and still safely hit the ramp profile without damaging itself. If very heavy there were times when min distance reqd exceeded maximum distance allowed - here you would have to defuel to reduce launch weight, or increase wind over the deck to reduce min distance required. At least this was always possible unlike on land, just burnt lots of ship fuel and made the old girl shake a bit..
Airspeed on ramp exit was of no real interest. You just needed to know max and min distances and nozzle rotate angle and tailplane trim. On ramp exit you captured the AOA and nozzled out towards the end of the ballistic phase as IAS built to sustain wingborne flight.
The ODM would calculate launch distances based on a Datum Launch Speed. Margins below datum were then used based on temperature and fit state. Counter-intuitively if very lightweight you werent allowed to go much below datum, whereas if you were heavy with jettisonable stores or the option of using water you could launch significantly below the datum as you had lots of ways of improving performance if you had a bad go.
It really was the gentlemans way to get airborne and was not a difficult technique - however when it went wrong it could go wrong very quickly.