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By: - 16th December 2002 at 16:12 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
RE: Harrier, a Widow-maker? Read!
reminds me of the pilot who crashed two or three Harriers in his career. ;-)
By: - 16th December 2002 at 18:29 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
RE: Harrier, a Widow-maker? Read!
What they dont seem to mention is the type of attack profile that suits the Hsrrier, probably wouldn't suit any other type and that if another type was used, they would probably get the same result.
Its not as though VTOL is new technology is it ?
And why cant they come up with a different handle...Widow Maker? thats what they called the Martin B26 Marauder.
Cheers
Gary
By: - 16th December 2002 at 20:34 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
RE: Harrier, a Widow-maker? Read!
[updated:LAST EDITED ON 16-12-02 AT 08:35 PM (GMT)]"--The Harrier has failed to make a significant and distinctive contribution on the battlefield."
Maybe so in USMC service but it seemed to do rather well in the Falkland Islands and the South Atlantic in 1982.
Regards,
kev35
By: - 16th December 2002 at 21:04 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
RE: Harrier, a Widow-maker? Read!
preventable accidents.....in what way??
sounds like journalists THINK they have somthing to talk about.
coanda
By: - 16th December 2002 at 22:16 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
RE: Harrier, a Widow-maker? Read!
yea, the article is a bit skewed to the "civilian" side i would say. Isn't it obvious to anybody that airplanes with special capabilities means lacking in other respects. If a plane can takeoff vertically and be as good as any other plane, then why not make all of them as such? Just because the "recent" wars didn't use it as much doesn't mean it's useless. Remember that in GW1, tactical fighter bombers were in such demand that strategic bombers were viewed as useless in future warfare...then you have Afghanistan.
By: - 16th December 2002 at 22:33 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
RE: Harrier, a Widow-maker? Read!
Generally, I thought the problems related to the Marine Harriers has been maintainability.
By: - 17th December 2002 at 02:30 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Sells newspapers
[updated:LAST EDITED ON 17-12-02 AT 02:48 AM (GMT)]The L.A. Times falls into the class of being retarded when commenting on military issues. Many of the Harrier issues are based around faulty funding in the logistical tail of the weapons system over a long time. Not unlike the F-16. In the early 90's F-16 engines ran great. Then someone in the logistical chain decided to re-adjust the funding at the logistics management level. The trimming of that money went into another budget. Within a year F-16s started falling out of the sky, engines not being ready on the refirb schedule. It was a mess. The USAF has just started to recover from that within the last 2 years. It took a long time. Back to the Harrier. Very similar situation. It's generally a good jet. But if you start trimming money off of the top on the logistics management end; all the non-sexy program management issues: parts supply etc. start to suffer; late deliverly of parts, QC, skilled people let go and on and on. The Corps. has always had a tight budget. Add the 90's downsizing to the issues above and you start having problems.
Anyway the short answer is it just wasn't the Harrier. Almost every aircraft in DOD was affected in one way or another. In the case of the Harrier or F-16, more jets crash. In the case of the C-5, mission up times slip to an alarming sub 50 % !!!!!! Congress created the problem by asking for a "Peace Dividend" at the beginning of the 90's : Reduce the military by 1/3, reduce funding all while doing nothing but increasing the taskings that the U.S. military had to do in the last 10 years around the world. Including the really unwise plan of making a large amount of these taskings fall on the Guard and the Reserve.
In the case of the Harrier, like the F-16 or C-5 and other DOD airframes, the chickens came home to roost. Some airframes are out of this hole now. Some, like the Harrier or B-1, are still getting back on their feet.
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A USAF F-15 pilot deployed to Prince Sultan AB Saudi in support of Southern Watch in 1998:
"You see on CNN the news about record budget surpluses, and then you go out to your jet that doesn't have any spare parts. And this is important to the country?"
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GAO Report 23 May 01 -
Military Aircraft - Cannibalizations Adversely Affect Personnel and Maintenance
pdf file- right click to down load http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d01693t.pdf
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By: - 17th December 2002 at 10:03 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
RE: Sells newspapers
I wonder if the LA Times are looking at the whole life of harrier service in the USMC? If that is the case then it would be seen as a dangerous aircraft. When the Marines first got the harrier they lost a lot of pilots whilst learning to hover the aircraft. Recently however I would have thought these kind of fatalities would be less common now.
By: - 17th December 2002 at 16:54 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
RE: It's the nature of the beast
AV-8A and AV-8B have always had a higher accident rate than other USMC airplanes because of it's operating environment and lack of redundancy. STOVL is inherently deadly due to the "deadman's zone" during VL operations. If something fails, there isn't enough energy (speed or altitude) to safely recover. Even if the pilot ejects, he could land in the fireball of the crashed airplane. A comparable USMC airplane (CTOL) is the A-4, which had a better safety record because it did not have a "deadman's zone".
Harrier is a very light weight design due to the marginal lifting power of its thrust-vectored engine. "Light weight" means there is no room for redundant systems or robustness for fault tolerance. In other words, it's more likely to suffer failures.
F-35B attempts to solve the above issues by adding redundancy in airframe systems and engine controls. However, it too has a "deadman's zone" during VL operations if the failure is something redundancy cannot correct (like sucking up a 6lb seagull).
By: - 17th December 2002 at 17:16 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
RE: It's the nature of the beast
every vtol aircraft is going to have deadmans zone in the hover, +/- 10 knots....its somthing that will never be worked around unless you start fitting emergency rockets at distinct points to provide propulsive lift in the event of an engine failure.
coanda
By: - 18th December 2002 at 00:13 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
RE: Harrier, a Widow-maker?
> The Harrier has failed to make a significant and distinctive con-
> tribution on the battlefield
As one who lives in San Jose, California..... this piece about the
hazzards of flying the AV-8B Harrier sounds a lot like the San Jose
Mercury's expose' on the M-2 Bradly! These reporters of daily news
papers don't read military related material very often, so when they
come across information that is damming to a weapon system they feel
the weapon system is a failure. In the case of the M-2 Bardly, the
Mercury made this sort of mistake. Things like critizing the M-2
for having to have floatation devices before becomming amphibious.
Saying ridiculus things like, "is the Army going to call time out
in a conflict so these devices can be attached before crossing a
river?" As it turned out, the M-2 Bradly armored infantry fighting
vehicle was one of the real "all stars" of the Persian Gulf War! The
Mercury was silent. When you see the Harrier critizised by profes-
sional periodicals such as Aviation Week, Tail Hook, US Naval Pro-
ceedings, etc. then..... you can take their word with creditablity!
In the Persian Gulf War the US Marines loved the air support they
recieved, most of it being Harriers! In fact, several people from
the US Army and other country's ground forces praised the Marines for
their CAS. Many times they call for air support that the "Air Force"
was supposed to provide was not timely. They were finally helped by
Marine Harriers!
General Horner (USAF) who was in charge of all air opporations in the
Persian Gulf War, said he felt the Harrier did a "superb job" in the
CAS roll.
I bet when all the dust settles, the Harier will emerge as a good air
plane!
Adrian
Posts: 833
By: Puffadder - 16th December 2002 at 15:37
Marine Corps' "Widow-Maker": Harrier Attack Jet
(Source: Los Angeles Times; issued Dec. 13, 2002)
LOS ANGELES---On Sunday, Dec. 15, the Los Angeles Times will launch a major four-part series, "The Vertical Vision," chronicling the troubled history of the most dangerous airplane flying in the U.S. military today -- the Marine Corps' Harrier attack jet.
Known among some Marine aviators as "The Widow-Maker," the Harrier was originally produced by the British to perform short and vertical takeoffs and landings from remote clearings and glens.
Among the findings reported by Times staff writers Alan C. Miller in Washington, D.C., and Kevin Sack in Atlanta are:
--The Harrier has killed some of the country's most accomplished and promising Marine aviators. Many of those deaths were preventable.
--The airplane has suffered the highest major accident rate of any Air Force, Army, Navy or Marine plane now in service.
--The Harrier has failed to make a significant and distinctive contribution on the battlefield.
--Despite the Harrier's controversial history, the Marines are pushing ahead with a new generation of vertical-lift aircraft, including the V-22 Osprey troop transport whose revolutionary technology also has had deadly side effects.
Times reporters and researchers in Houston, London, Los Angeles, San Diego and Washington, D.C., contributed to the report.
The series publication schedule:
--Dec. 15 -- Deaths in training, disappointments in combat
--Dec. 16 -- What could go wrong has gone wrong with the Harrier
--Dec. 17 -- One pilot's story
--Dec. 18 -- The Marines keep their "vertical vision" alive
The series' first installment, as well as a comprehensive multimedia package, will be available online after 5 p.m. Dec. 14 at www.latimes.com/harrier.
The Los Angeles Times, a Tribune Publishing company, is the largest metropolitan daily newspaper in the country and winner of 27 Pulitzer Prizes. It publishes four daily regional editions covering the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the San Fernando Valley, and Orange and Ventura counties as well as an Inland Valley section and a National Edition.