FEBA and Harry
Glad to hear Horsham has a good library. The hovering that was carried out alongside what I recall was originally an extended turntable ladder (courtesy of the local Fire Brigade) and later a large crane hired for a few days, was just to establish how accurately the Harrier could be hovered. We used basic visual cues that were provided by a simple wooden sight designed by Heinz Frick (another Dunsfold tp) as part of his Skyhook project. It turned out that one could keep the pilots head steady inside a 1 foot cube if you really tried and a 1 metre cube if you didn’t.
The issue of why the P1127/Pegasus concept was preferred over the SC1/RB108 lift jets involved a very different era when mechanical complexity, as well as the use of electrics in a flight critical role, was rather asking for trouble. So Hawkers decided you would not need a single volt to control the P1127 or Harrier family including the Sea Harrier. The necessary interconnection between the nozzles and the flaps with the Harrier IIs as well as the later use of a digital engine control system (correctly) put an end to that.
The SC1 was more pleasant to hover than the P1127 because there were no air intake effects trying to make the thing point tail to wind. But it was a nightmare to operate in the circuit, stopping and starting all those donks without a flight engineer.
Today a complex beast is not necessarily something to fear from a reliability point of view (think of your car compared to your Dad’s) and computers can act as your flight engineer. But as the JSF programme has shown there are many other factors affecting the optimum configuration, not least of which are stealth and hot gas recirculation.
But stick at it Harry, because when it is your turn the jet of the day will give you a lot of fun if you can only beat the other guys (and girls) into the cockpit
Regards