Harrier display by the Don
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LO
To be fair to the Swiss, they had persuaded a fickle populace to invest rather heavily in caverns to protect their aircraft so the Harriers off field attributes were less of an issue.
Perhaps they also remembered Bill Bedford's Hunter demo when he pulled out of a loop a tad lower than intended!
To be fair to the Swiss, they had persuaded a fickle populace to invest rather heavily in caverns to protect their aircraft so the Harriers off field attributes were less of an issue.
Perhaps they also remembered Bill Bedford's Hunter demo when he pulled out of a loop a tad lower than intended!
Last edited by draken55; 29th Nov 2011 at 14:54.
Do a Hover - it avoids G
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Thank you for your kind words. Some points have been raised:
The airfield was Lugano. The main runway had a loose surface hence the original rolling arrival.
The Harrier did not meet the rules of the fighter competition which required all entries to be in series production when the comp started. The Harrier was not.
So Hawkers rented XV742 from MODPE and got it civil registered as G-VSTO because we could not get Dip Clearance for a mil aircraft and flew it to a club airfield. (where to Swiis AF top brass were happy to come and look)
The aircraft was certainly not as heavy as later marks BUT (and it was a big but) it only had the small Peg 6 donk with rather less than 19 grand installed.
Since jet VSTOL was not widely understood in those days I chose manoruvres to show specific things like:
When you decelerated for a VL you were not committed to hover let alone VL
When you did stop you could still change your mind and overshoot.
You could hover nose up and nose down so long as you pointed the donk at the ground.
You could go fast sideways and backwards showing tolerance of wind direction in a hover (where your heading might be determined by needing to see obstacles)
The USMC were concerned with roll due to sideslip swamping the puffers and so making you lose lateral control. Hence the pedal turn at significant forward speed. Many will appreciate that the asymmetric lift between the two wings will depend on the product of IAS squared, sidselip and AOA. As with any product of three numbers if you keep one (in this case AOA) zero then the product is zero. So it was not a dangerous thing to do if you maintained wings level and kept the nose low.
Nice demo site to show off from. The hill was 900ft high and the peak was about 1000ft from the R/W centreline. I chose to operate towards the hill as at the time the purveyors of STOL aircraft were saying there was no need to have the V bit. I suggested to the Swiss AF officers that they invited STOL people to do a take off facing the hill.
For me flying at high speed among those hills was the most tricky part of the whole thing.
Happy days (as many were 40 years ago).
JF
Thank you for your kind words. Some points have been raised:
The airfield was Lugano. The main runway had a loose surface hence the original rolling arrival.
The Harrier did not meet the rules of the fighter competition which required all entries to be in series production when the comp started. The Harrier was not.
So Hawkers rented XV742 from MODPE and got it civil registered as G-VSTO because we could not get Dip Clearance for a mil aircraft and flew it to a club airfield. (where to Swiis AF top brass were happy to come and look)
The aircraft was certainly not as heavy as later marks BUT (and it was a big but) it only had the small Peg 6 donk with rather less than 19 grand installed.
Since jet VSTOL was not widely understood in those days I chose manoruvres to show specific things like:
When you decelerated for a VL you were not committed to hover let alone VL
When you did stop you could still change your mind and overshoot.
You could hover nose up and nose down so long as you pointed the donk at the ground.
You could go fast sideways and backwards showing tolerance of wind direction in a hover (where your heading might be determined by needing to see obstacles)
The USMC were concerned with roll due to sideslip swamping the puffers and so making you lose lateral control. Hence the pedal turn at significant forward speed. Many will appreciate that the asymmetric lift between the two wings will depend on the product of IAS squared, sidselip and AOA. As with any product of three numbers if you keep one (in this case AOA) zero then the product is zero. So it was not a dangerous thing to do if you maintained wings level and kept the nose low.
Nice demo site to show off from. The hill was 900ft high and the peak was about 1000ft from the R/W centreline. I chose to operate towards the hill as at the time the purveyors of STOL aircraft were saying there was no need to have the V bit. I suggested to the Swiss AF officers that they invited STOL people to do a take off facing the hill.
For me flying at high speed among those hills was the most tricky part of the whole thing.
Happy days (as many were 40 years ago).
JF
Water and backwards speed questions
John, thank you so much for posting and taking the time to comment on the display. Especially enjoyed the pedal turns at high forward speed. Most impressive. Had thought that a no-no due to intake drag, but thanks for explaining it.
I would have thought such a longish disply would have fully depleted the water injection tank? Would such a display get close to max EGT?
Finally on the backwards speed- was it limited to ~40knots? Recall reading (Sharkey's book) about the rudder shaking if going too fast.
I would have thought such a longish disply would have fully depleted the water injection tank? Would such a display get close to max EGT?
Finally on the backwards speed- was it limited to ~40knots? Recall reading (Sharkey's book) about the rudder shaking if going too fast.
