While people do blame Cameron for retiring the harriers altogether,it was Tony Blair who started the harrier demise by retiring the Sea Harrier FA2s early in 2006, I recon.

@billypribbo9668USNavy do not fly the Harriers, the US Marine Corps do.

In Vietnam the US found it's F-4 Phantoms never flew at supersonic speed during dogfights and seldom flew above mach 1.65. This is why the USN F-18 top speed is mach 1.80.

The F/A2 carried AIM-9L. and AMRAAM missiles for air to air, the latter more accurately than any other AMRAAM user.

Sea Harriers are long gone but the AV-8B will remain in service with the Marine Corps until CY 2029.

Top speed definitely doesnt define a plane. It couldnt go faster because no afterburner, but it still managed to consistently beat mirages in Argentina since top speed is useless in a dogfight

It could reach 700 in a shallow dive...but speed isn't everything when you can hit targets 50 miles away, and out turn anything in a guns fight.

Alan Caldoza the F-35 is so far ahead of the sea harrier it’s not even a comparison.

Britain never operated the Starfighter.

Britain was supposed to get the F111, not the Starfighter. But, of course, that never happened.

Sea Harriers were retired in 2006 long before the F-35B achieved IOC in 2015.

@@AA-xo9uw sea harrier was ditched in favour of the tornado not F35 we were already working on the F35 way before and had the mock cockpit in the hanger of 899 Sqn so we could see and work with the engineers. the harrier should never have been scrapped as it had many more years left in it as a Fighter aircraft. Th e blue vixen was an amazing radar

@Fighter Jet Pilot nope, Sea Harriers have decent atrack radars and can carry AMRAAMs. We have the equivilent to the RAF ground attack versions with the FLIR in place of the radar.

I already love the AV-8B, it'd be amazing to get a dogfighting focused Harrier

Worked on these for 9 years at 899 and were amazing machines such a shame the dicks in Gov get rid of them

H3584: Let's rephrase that to more accurately reflect reality: "If you are going to cripple your navy by having the wrong mix of ships and eliminating fixed wing fighter, attack and early warning capability, the Harrier is a 'good" fourth choice aircraft." Other than the special example of the Falklands, the VTOL land basing concept remains an un-validated requirement. The Harrier has never operated in VTOL mode ashore which could not have been performed by other conventional fixed wing aircraft with improvised or combat runways.

@@KB4QAAlet's put it more simple - i'm not a military specialist, i am only old enough ( 63 y.o.) to be the eye witness of that war....now everything is upside down and i don't even try to guess the reasons of all manipulations...but i saw it ! i saw what harriers had been doing with theoretically better argentinian mirages - it was a real "slaughter of the innocents"

@@helios-jj2wq The magic was in the brand new AIM-9L Sidewinder missiles with "All aspect" homing which the US Navy gave to the Royal Navy. The Royal Navy pilots could have been flying Sopwith Camels and downed the Argies. The second half of their success was in remaining at medium altitudes where the Harrier turns better and declining to climb to high altitudes where the MIrage would outperform them.

It's rather not a secret that the US Army is the unmatched power, cooperation between the two armies, british and american is not a great surprise either and i believe it was as you said...you seem to be a military expert, i am not !.... however, that what we both said, proves how cautious must be everyone planning any action, military in particular - everything counts and everything must be taken into account....so, as you can see, i don't insist that harrier is the best, i only described what i had seen with my own eyes....you said the rest

@@KB4QAA well the SEA HARRIER was built and designed to be a naval aircraft, so it's VTOL use on land is irrelevant with this particular one. Carrier borne fighter attack aircraft. Mainly STOVL not VTOL for the UK. Why you would choose to ignore the conflict where this capability in particular made a significant difference to the outcome, I have no idea. It is also the only true air combat that UK forces had for many years. Since the Suez crisis I believe? And subsequently. Without the aircraft the Royal Navy would not have had the defence it required from air attacks and would probably not have been sent off to war as it was. The RAF Harrier was used during the cold war as air defence of Germany. The VTOL capability was hugely advantageous because it allowed the aircraft to be stationed away from conventional airfields. Your comment seems a bit naïve, and based fully on the fact that there wasn't a "conventional" war against an advanced military to use them in other than the Falklands. - which disproves your point entirely. When you talk to Harrier ground crews they trained in the use of landing pads and car parks for forward refuelling. Which effectively gave the harrier extended range beyond reach of an airfield. This was particularly useful for the Navy as it meant when a land based attack was launched, the troops could set up a forward refuelling area to allow the Harrier greater time over target, negating the constant need to return to ship. This also allowed the Carrier's to stay further away from enemy forces, on or beyond the limit of conventional enemy aircraft. In the later years OF UK service, the Harrier was a joint force aircraft, operating Royal Navy and RAF together with the same airframe. This aircraft was used extensively in Afghanistan, and VTOL wasn't the primary mode of use because they wanted to carry the weight of bombs and laser designating pod.

YOU should be flying off HMS Queen Elizabeth today

Did you ever work on them? Towards the end they were INCREDIBLY maintenance heavy, and very, very old. Even the 'new build' ZH airframes were new builds of an ageing design, powered by an engine that couldn't operate in the 'hot and high' climates that were becoming part of the MO of the British armed forces in the 2000s.

@Brian Coley You only addressed the hot/high restriction, and not the age of design, maintenance difficulties etc... If you worked on them, you would know that, in spite of what doe eyed enthusiasts tell you, they were becoming increasingly hard to keep flying on a normal day, let alone in a high risk scenario such as a war zone.

The AV8B was a completely different aircraft from the FA2, having a more modern construction, reliant on lighter alloys and carbon composites than the Sea Harrier's predominantly aluminium / steel construction, which was too heavy (leading to limitations on manoeuvring that had to be checked daily, via G-counters). So, there is no comparison between the AV8B Harrier and Sea Harrier FA2.

@Brian Coley I am not 'talking'...I am 'recounting'...as during my years on Sea Harriers, I saw all of this. Aircraft unserviceable due to lack of spares, being repaired by salvaged parts from crash damaged aircraft, limitations on aircraft due to overstress...and yes, limitations due to the design being old (How long ago the airframe was built doesn't matter. The DESIGN was still obsolete. For example, if you built a brand new Austin 7 from original drawings, it wouldn't automatically be a fast, fuel efficient hybrid...it would still be an Austin 7...if you built a brand new Spitfire in the same manner, it couldn't go toe to toe with an F22 or SU57, because, despite being shiny new thing, it would still be an eighty plus year old fighter design and therefore crushingly obsolete ). ...and having worked first hand on Sea Harrier FA2, GR7, GR7A and GR9 Harriers...I think I know a little bit about what I am talking about.

Nurse........... up the dose on this one please?

You mean dangerous to whoever the opposing pilot is surey? It won an air war in 1982.

...unless the pilots are the best in the world.

Oh.... and I forgot to mention that it regularly demolished the F-15 in combat exercises..... Put that in your Pratt & Whitney and smoke it!

define better.. It had worse radar, payload, speed, range, maneovrability, climb rate and no IRST or TV cam However it was cheaper, easier to maintain, and was VTOL, wich makes it able to operate from smaller and much cheaper carriers, easier to land as it lands vertically.. it can land in any runway and it can even land in the helicopter pad of warships or at a parking lot ..or even on top of a freighter containers (as a Shar proved when she landed on a spanish freighter due to emergency) wich makes it extremelly flexible on crossdecks. Not every..or even many nations can afford gigantic supercarriers to handle jets like the Tomcat.. however the Harrier enabled Britain, Spain, Italy , Thailand and India at first to have operating carriers with strike fighters on them BTW... the Shar Blue Vixen radar was really amazing.. but its a bit hard to compare to the Tomcat AWG9/APG-71..the Blue Vixen has a much smaller radar dish wich limits its range compared to the big dish the AWG9 had.. however the BV was amazing in radar modes and handling targets and it had ground attack modes wich the AWG9 lacked (the APG71 later incorporated ground modes) so the Blue Vixen was more flexible than the AWG9... in fact the Blue Vixen was so good (save for the range issue due to physical limitations) that it was eventually evolved in the Euroradar CAPTOR wich today is mounted in the Eurofighter wich is better than the APG-70 and APG-71 radars

It beat the F5 aggressor squadron, F-15 s from Germany and F-14 in Nevada test ranges in air to air combat

Tomcat would never operate from a small Invincible carrier, Long range, Radar+Sparrow Tomcat wins Medium range, Blue Vixen + AMRAAM Harrier wins Shorter range Sidewinder finds the Hotter Tomcat - Harrier Wins Gun fight High Level /Fast Tomcat wins Low level/Slow Harrier wins Turning Battle Tomcat has the raw grunt , and can choose to disengage/engage , but wet thrust drains the tanks , Harrier can outclimb TC on Dry thrust, and more persistence, so 50-50

@@sparrowlt Ahem! TC RoC - 45,000 ft/min vrs FA2 - 50,000 ft/min And Combat Radius TC 500 nmi vrs FA2 540 nmi And are you SURE that a 33 ton swing wing yank tank is more maneuverable than a 12 ton little British sea bird?

@@farmerned6 You never flew a Cat against those little maneuverable A-4s and F-5s at SFTI did you?

Ever worked on o e? Their time came at the right time.

And then all the Harriers were scrapped by the Tories. Swings and roundabouts.