thanks for the kind words for us aircraft mechs! I used to do avionics on the USMC A-4 Skyhawks, which did involve diving into some tiny holes in the fuselage at times. As noted, pulling the engine was an involved process, but maybe not any worse than pulling the wing on the Harrier??

as an aspiring marine aviator, I live hearing all this stuff. Amazing! thank you.

Gotta love the Harrier and that Pegasus engine...truly the little engine that could!

In 1989 I was on my way to the CVN69 somewhere in the Med. we departed Philadelphia on a chartered L-1011 and flew direct to Rota Spain. We spent about 3 hours there while unloading and reloading cargo and military passengers. This was the first time I actually saw harriers take off except on TV. Two Spanish early model harriers took off and accelerated like batts out of hell. It was impressive. They seemed so small in comparison to everything else… I think part of it was the very short nose and the relatively large intakes. I can still see these two take off in my mind. Another truly wonderful podcast.

LOVE this podcast, it's brilliant! Cannot wait for this show to blow up and get all the attention it deserves!

A little fact on the 7th June 1983 a Royal Navy Sea Harrier from HMS Illustrious was operating of the coast of Portugal the harrier lost radio communications running low on fuel the pilot turned east towards the shipping lanes and made a emergency landing on a Spanish container ship I'm sure of missed stuff out you can check it out youtube or Google is called the alraigo incident just thought I'd share that 😀

The marines really do have some awesome stuff. Love to hear from a CH53 pilot

Great podcast. I went through desert survival school at NAF El Centro in 1994 right after True Lies came out. There were some Recon dudes, Navy pilots, SWCC and SEALs in the class. During the isolation phase they had us sequestered in a hangar. A pair AV8Bs were transiting through. One of the pilots in my class started talking about an airshow he did a static display at. After the Harrier demo, all the ladies flocked to the Harrier Pilot. No one would talk to him. I asked him what he flew. He replied, “the f$ck!ng C-2 COD”

Another fascinating FPP episode. My 74 year old dad listens now - with a little iPhone + Pickup truck coaching from me. By the way, good call on revamping the “Strengths & Weaknesses” section to (maybe) “Things You Love or Wish You Had.” I still laugh about Brian Shul’s humorous response to potential SR-71 weaknesses, “... how DARE you ask me about weaknesses!.” 🤣 Another 20 years for the super strong AV-8B - how awesome is that? Thanks for your service, Magwa! Thanks again, Jell-O!

The first time I saw the Harrier was when I was 6 or 7 while watching movie True Lies growing up in China. The first time I saw one in person was at an airshow after I moved to the states where they had one just hovering in air showing the impressive thrust and VTOL capability.

Former Marine I-level (how many listeners know what I-level means lol) avionics tech here, MALS-32, attached to an AV-8B squadron (VMA-231) in Desert Storm. Our squadron still had "day attack" birds, which can be identified by a shorter nose with a bluish-colored glass lens on the tip of the nose, which was the sensor for the optical Angle Rate Bombing System (ARBS). About a week or two into the war I was assigned to the squadron's guard platoon and stood guard on the base perimeter in a machinegun nest. We saw Harriers constantly taking off loaded for bear and coming back empty. At one point me and some buddies walked down the flight line and took some pictures; I remember our squadron commander's jet had something like 80 plus bomb sorties painted on the side, a little black bomb with a number stenciled in it. It also had some Arabic writing on the nose that someone told me translated to "Free Kuwait". It was also the only jet with shark teeth and eyes painted on the nose, which looked kind of funny on a Harrier, although I'm sure it wasn't funny to the enemy. Most of our jets had 60-80 sorties painted on them. A lot of the stuff Magwa talks about in the vid bring back memories, although the fancier avionics such as the color displays and radar came after I left. The day attack Harrier had a single monochrome display screen in it, which had a picture tube. We used to fix that, as well as the HUD and a bunch of other electronic boxes. The HUD had a wooden shipping crate to move it around because it was so delicate; we had to align it on a special fixture with a light collimator that plugged into our test sets. It was pretty cool to look through when it was on the bench and we would tweak some pots in it to set up the gun sight zero and so on. I also was attached to VMA-331 on a shipboard deployment, and that was a pretty interesting experience as well, which I could go on about. To this day if I hear a Harrier's Pegasus engine I instantly recognize it. No other engine sounds quite like it. Some people say it's an ugly airplane. I say it's beautiful and am pretty proud to have served with those squadrons. Semper Fi to Magwa, and to those Marines who fought off the attack on that base he describes. You want to fight one of us, you're gonna fight all of us.

Just found these Podcasts (Shelter at home), and I'm addicted! Didn't scroll through all 71 comments, so sorry if this was already mentioned. You asked about Harpoon; I believe the British used Sea Eagle anti-ship missiles on their Sea Harriers. Thanks, again!

Back in the day when we had the A model, there use to be a saying around Cherry Point, "Want to get rich, buy an acre of land around here and wait for a Harrier to fall into it"

Man, I LOVE this podcast

Great interview MAGWA! Randomly came across this!

Hi, just found this podcast and as a former military pilot it brings back some fun memories, thank you for that. When you talked about weird landing spot for the Harrier I remembered an old story of a British Sea Harrier, during a NATO exercise that couldn’t find his ship to return to and so when he was about to eject as he was running out of fuel he found a cargo ship and just landed on top of the containers. The thing is that it was a Spanish cargo ship and the British doesn’t get along very well with the Spanish because of an old dispute over Gibraltar. So the British government had to pay a large sum to the ship owner to have their Harrier returned. It was known as the Alraigo Incident. Cheers to all from Portugal

Fantastic episode❤❤

When the Harrier retires I'll probably be depressed for the whole day because it's a hero that we'll miss.

The Harrier was better in the air to air role, than its ever given credit for. The Sea Harriers in the Royal Navy in the early 80's had a few DACT engagements against US Agressor squadrons flying F-5Es, and even against the F-15 Eagle Squadron, and according to Nigel 'Sharkey' Ward, CO of 801 Naval Air Squadron, the Sea Harriers often came out on top. And these engagements happened on ACM recorded ranges, were the outcomes couldn't be disputed. Also, the Sea Harrier loses in the Falklands were all from ground fire. No Sea Harrier was lost in air to air.

Can we one day have an episode about contract air support services? Draken, ATAC, TAC Air, Top Aces etc?

Great podcast. I really enjoyed that he was so open about both the advantages and disadvantages of the harrier. I find some pilots are a bit too Rah Rah about thier aircraft, which I get is understandable. I was wondering if you guys would be able to interview some aggresor squad pilots that have flown some Soviet block planes, or choppers like the MiG 21, MiG 23, MiG 29, Mi 24, or Su 27. Or even some ex Soviet or Warsaw pact pilots.

I enjoyed every seconds of this

Another 9 or 10 years left, suxh a shame we got rid of ours (UK). Loved watching them fly low level over my parents house in Scotland back in the day

Harrier is pretty cool, thanks for another good episode. You mention an episode about the F-35 and I would be interested in one episode on each main type sine they are for different services and there are a variety of differences between thd three variants

Great show! Had to respect the Harrier. They didn't call it the Widow Maker for nothing!

The Sidearms was a Aim9C that was modified to be an AGM. The Aim-9C was the only radar sidewinder made in mass.

I heard a noise just a few minutes ago and woke up... I would have gotten about of bed earlier had I known it was TFPP uploading some VSTOL goodness.

I was based out of KCAE Columbia SC and two harriers came up from KNBC Beaufort which was fairly rare and through the ramp speakers monitoring tower/ground they requested landing. The female control specifically stated cleared to land do not hover. Well 1/4 mile out I could see they were setting up for a vtol and over the numbers they hovered then sat down. Long story short.. The rubber on the runway caught fire and closed for fod. Never saw another Av8.

Great show! I'm cramming this along with Tailhook 2019 panels today.

The attack on Camp Bastion happened in the Helmand province which is in southern Afghanistan in September 2012. I was in the US Army and deployed at Camp Leatherneck at the time of the attack. Camp Leatherneck being the name of the western half of Camp Bastion. Myself and many members of my unit were woken up by the attack and we could see the fires from our housing units.

Sea Harriers FRS.2 for the UK could carry their Sea Eagle Anti-Ship Missiles (both now out of service).

The classic Great Planes episode of the Harrier here: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/j92BaaunttGdmp8.html The Harrier can be flown on the classic flight sim Jane's Fighters Anthology. Find more info here: myplace.frontier.com/~usnraptor/

Sully's aircraft is now on static display in Charlotte, NC at the Carolinas Aviation Museum

A buddy of mine participated in the opeval of the AV-8B back in the '80s. Love the direction the Harrier has taken over time. Day-only, Night Attack, Plus, Litening and now with AIM-120. Really got the most out of that airframe as they could. Remember the Harrier in the '91 Gulf War? They got a rude awakening from IR MANPADS ...

The stick (and some of the cockpit) look very similar to legacy F-18 cockpit.

Amazing plane. I saw a YT video of a Harrier landing on a stool because the front landing gear was broke. Crazy. "US Navy Harrier Jet Lands On Stool" is what you search for.

Jello, you all NEED to hit up Reno during the air races. Make sure you get your media passes so you can be down at the pylons. Highly, HIGHLY, recommend the experience.

Interview starts at 21:40

I have a friend I play DCS with who was a Mech on Harriers. I every now and then when we do an engine drop (I'm an Airframer on Hornets) I send him a photo just to mess with him. The response is usually some form of expletive. Also any timeline on the Maintainer episode? It would be cool if you guys could get both an Air Force guy and a Navy guy as I know we do some things differently. Also if you guys are fine with a lowly E-5 I would not mind stepping up if you don't have anyone.

Jello, What do helicopter pilots say after they train to fly a Harrier ?

The "click here to enter" bit doesn't appear to do anything! :P

Interview: 21:30

So of course there is confusion: there is such a thing as an AV-8C; it's hard to find info on but it was apparently an upgraded AV-8A that served a couple of Marine squadrons to fill a gap until the AV-8B, then in development, was ready to enter service. So the C seems to be just a fancier A model, like the II+ is a fancier B.

As always, thd best podcast on Harrier. Those giant intakes can suck the whole elephant and wont even notice.

There's a Royal Navy 2 seat T.4 Harrier at the Western Museum of Flight in Torrance. :) www.demobbed.org.uk/images.php?s=d&type=1824

I learned a thing

Who is the honorless Romulan p'tagh who had the unmitigated gall to hit the thumbs-down button?

“Enemy harriers inbound”

get a kc-130 pilot on

The British didn’t shoot down any Super Etendard, but Skyhawks, Daggers/Mirages, Pucarás (gun fire). They had some advantages due the use of the AIM-9L and the superior training. Although, the Argentineans were incredible brave pilots.

Back when Brits were great engineers

The F35 is a Harrier on steroids