RE: Harrier GR3: You Know You Want To

RE: Harrier GR3: You Know You Want To

Author
Discussion

Dr Jekyll

23,820 posts

260 months

Thursday 27th March 2014
quotequote all
They have Hawks and Gnat as well!

Suppose you seriously wanted to learn to fly and work your way up to a fast jet, how would you go about it? Suppose money wasn't an object but you didn't actually want to spend more than you had to or buy a third world country with an airforce.

My guess:

Go to your local flying club, get a PPL, then some instrument and aerobatic training in something a bit more complicated. Say £20,000.

Then get yourself trained on an L29 or Jet Provost. In principle you could learn from scratch in a Jet Provost so not too difficult.

Then repeat in something swept wing, Hunter or Gnat for example. Plenty of PPLs have done this, I think soloing in about 15 hours with previous jet experience. Then lots of expensive practice.

Could you get to be a competent sunny weekends flyer in a Hunter for £1,000,000 do you think? Allowing for retained value in your aircraft.

yellowjack

17,065 posts

165 months

Thursday 27th March 2014
quotequote all
SKiwi said:
Somewhere there is video of a Harrier taking off from Central London - I remember seeing a clip of the London to New York air race & the Harrier took off from the yard of 1 of the main railway stations which was being worked on at the time....... There may have been a Concorde used as well
Tangmere museum has the race winning Harrier now... http://www.warbirdsnews.com/warbirds-news/race-win...

Eric Mc

121,785 posts

264 months

Thursday 27th March 2014
quotequote all
SKiwi said:
Somewhere there is video of a Harrier taking off from Central London - I remember seeing a clip of the London to New York air race & the Harrier took off from the yard of 1 of the main railway stations which was being worked on at the time....... There may have been a Concorde used as well
No Concorde as the race was in 1969 and Concorde had just started its test programme that year (first flight was in March 1969).

TransverseTight

753 posts

144 months

Thursday 27th March 2014
quotequote all
dukebox9reg said:
Components are very very expensive 1 small screw will cost around £20 due to it being stringently tested for airworthiness regardless of it probably being the same screw you can get from B&Q for a couple of pence.
I can confirm that, my bro is a quality manager at a well known aero engine manufacturer. Every part has to have a certificate of airworthiness with full tracing back through the supply chain, whether it's a turbo fan blade or a tiny washer. Causes a night mare when they ship a pack of 100 washers and the customer finds there's 101 in the packet! 99 is ok, as they all have certs, and they can send the extra 1, but with 101 it means one part has been sent out uncertified and therefore quality control has failed!

I think if you buy one the best you can hope for is to stick a 3x 55" OLED screen around the windscreen and build yourself a top spec flight sim gaming rig. (Or maybe get occulus rift VR glasses).


Godalmighty83

417 posts

253 months

Thursday 27th March 2014
quotequote all
A customer of ours flew a harrier in the late 80's he said once moving they were fantastic craft, almost fantastic enough to make you forget the pant wetting terror on either end of the journey.

'Have you ever gone to use your wipers and hit the indicator stalk by mistake? It's like that but you're upside down and dead before the little green light gets a chance to come on the dash'

Europa1

10,923 posts

187 months

Thursday 27th March 2014
quotequote all
fatboy69 said:
No chance.

Its mine because i dis-like my neighbour's intensely.
What, you neighbour has a Harrier already?! (sorry, the pedant in me couldn't resist it....)

Europa1

10,923 posts

187 months

Thursday 27th March 2014
quotequote all
The RAF holds the record for the Beaujolais Run - they did it in a Harrier one year; took off from a car park on the edge of Beaujeu and landed it at Battersea Heliport, I believe. Not sure how they got the plonk from there to the Times' editor's desk....

I remember the A1 lightning well from my days sclepping up and down the A1 to/from Uni in the North - great shame to see it being left to deteriorate like that.

There used to be one (and a Hurricane (I think)) as gate guards at RAF Coltishall - I wonder what happended to them when the base was decommissioned?

Ginetta G15 Girl

3,220 posts

183 months

Thursday 27th March 2014
quotequote all
Dr Jekyll said:
Suppose you seriously wanted to learn to fly and work your way up to a fast jet, how would you go about it?

[snip]

Then get yourself trained on an L29 or Jet Provost. In principle you could learn from scratch in a Jet Provost so not too difficult.

Then repeat in something swept wing, Hunter or Gnat for example.
Aside from the fact that it is unlikely that the CAA would ever license the Hawk for civil operation (owing to lack of independent redundancy in the flying controls and services), you could fly a Hawk on a PPL (after all its MTOW is less than 7,500 Kg).

However there is no way you could step from a puddle jumper (no matter how many hours you have) into a swept wing fast jet (despite the fact that the Hawk is very benign in its handling characteristics).

In my day, RAF student pilots going on to the Hawk had at least 120-140 hrs on the Jet Provost. The JP5A in itself was a major step up even for those who had flown the JP3.




Anyone who thinks they can just strap a Harrier to their rear end (especially an early small wing variant) and commit aviation is living in cloud cuckoo land. Aside from the problems of Intake Momentum Drag in the hover/transition (which will kill you really quickly if you get it wrong), you have all the problems of the high B:A ratio of a small winged fast jet (ie inertial forces will overcome lift if you cock up the handling at high alpha - again this will kill you really quickly if you get it wrong).

Dr Jekyll

23,820 posts

260 months

Thursday 27th March 2014
quotequote all
Ginetta G15 Girl said:
Aside from the fact that it is unlikely that the CAA would ever license the Hawk for civil operation (owing to lack of independent redundancy in the flying controls and services), you could fly a Hawk on a PPL (after all its MTOW is less than 7,500 Kg).

However there is no way you could step from a puddle jumper (no matter how many hours you have) into a swept wing fast jet (despite the fact that the Hawk is very benign in its handling characteristics).
Which is why I reckoned a JP before the Hunter. Although I think Finland tried taking students direct from the Valmet Vinka onto Hawks.

But what about someone with plenty of time in swept wing jet airliners? Would that experience be helpful in coping with a swept wing FJ?

HoHoHo

14,980 posts

249 months

Thursday 27th March 2014
quotequote all
Ginetta G15 Girl said:
Aside from the fact that it is unlikely that the CAA would ever license the Hawk for civil operation (owing to lack of independent redundancy in the flying controls and services), you could fly a Hawk on a PPL (after all its MTOW is less than 7,500 Kg).

However there is no way you could step from a puddle jumper (no matter how many hours you have) into a swept wing fast jet (despite the fact that the Hawk is very benign in its handling characteristics).

In my day, RAF student pilots going on to the Hawk had at least 120-140 hrs on the Jet Provost. The JP5A in itself was a major step up even for those who had flown the JP3.




Anyone who thinks they can just strap a Harrier to their rear end (especially an early small wing variant) and commit aviation is living in cloud cuckoo land. Aside from the problems of Intake Momentum Drag in the hover/transition (which will kill you really quickly if you get it wrong), you have all the problems of the high B:A ratio of a small winged fast jet (ie inertial forces will overcome lift if you cock up the handling at high alpha - again this will kill you really quickly if you get it wrong).
So in essence the procedure is as follows:

Buy Harrier
Complete up-to-date last Will & Testament
Sit in cockpit
Start it and try to fly it
Die

The end.

Simples.

Dr Jekyll

23,820 posts

260 months

Thursday 27th March 2014
quotequote all
HoHoHo said:
So in essence the procedure is as follows:

Buy Harrier
Complete up-to-date last Will & Testament
Sit in cockpit
Start it and try to fly it
Die

The end.

Simples.
I've had worse days.

HoHoHo

14,980 posts

249 months

Thursday 27th March 2014
quotequote all
Dr Jekyll said:
HoHoHo said:
So in essence the procedure is as follows:

Buy Harrier
Complete up-to-date last Will & Testament
Sit in cockpit
Start it and try to fly it
Die

The end.

Simples.
I've had worse days.
Can't have been many, death seems to be pretty final these days hehe

williamp

19,217 posts

272 months

Thursday 27th March 2014
quotequote all
Or...

By a harrier
Chop the wings off
Get it mot'd
Road tax (pre 74??)
An excellent and swift M25 commuter

Ginetta G15 Girl

3,220 posts

183 months

Thursday 27th March 2014
quotequote all
Dr Jekyll said:
But what about someone with plenty of time in swept wing jet airliners? Would that experience be helpful in coping with a swept wing FJ?
That would certainly help. For eg the knowledge that banking a swept wing a/c invariably leads to a nose down pitch.

However I'm not sure that the average Airline jockey gets that much 'hands on' time. Nor do they (usually) get towards the extremes of the handling envelope.

Boatbuoy

1,941 posts

161 months

Thursday 27th March 2014
quotequote all
Ginetta G15 Girl said:
Dr Jekyll said:
However I'm not sure that the average Airline jockey gets that much 'hands on' time. Nor do they (usually) get towards the extremes of the handling envelope.
You haven't been on Ryanair then G15 wink

Dr Jekyll

23,820 posts

260 months

Thursday 27th March 2014
quotequote all
Ginetta G15 Girl said:
That would certainly help. For eg the knowledge that banking a swept wing a/c invariably leads to a nose down pitch.
Would that still apply in a Hansa Jet?


JordanTurbo

937 posts

140 months

Thursday 27th March 2014
quotequote all
dukebox9reg said:
Worked on Apache helicopters for 12 years so not quite fast jet but still gas turbine engines etc......

......A blade sleeve (the bit that holds the rotor to the rotor head on the Apache) costs £24k......
Which Blade Sleeve on the Apache are you referring to? Maybe you mean the Pitch housing or Lead-lag-link sleeve bearing?
definitely no Blade sleeves here. On a Lynx however.... wink

Your right about the price of spares though. Just today I opened a packet of 10 tie-wraps and the FACCO label said £83.06. 6 of the 10 tie wraps are now helping to hold my bunk together in the block. biggrin

Edited by JordanTurbo on Thursday 27th March 18:13

eccles

13,721 posts

221 months

Thursday 27th March 2014
quotequote all
HoHoHo said:
How on earth can a jet suffer from 'incurable fuel leaks'?

Presumably there's a finite number of pipes and bolts that are either loose or need a tighten up?
Probably incurable with the kit they had to hand.

PaulG40

2,381 posts

224 months

Thursday 27th March 2014
quotequote all
JordanTurbo said:
dukebox9reg said:
Worked on Apache helicopters for 12 years so not quite fast jet but still gas turbine engines etc......

......A blade sleeve (the bit that holds the rotor to the rotor head on the Apache) costs £24k......
Which Blade Sleeve on the Apache are you referring to? Maybe you mean the Pitch housing or Lead-lag-link sleeve bearing?
definitely no Blade sleeves here. On a Lynx however.... wink

Your right about the price of spares though. Just today I opened a packet of 10 tie-wraps and the FACCO label said £83.06. 6 of the 10 tie wraps are now helping to hold my bunk together in the block. biggrin

Edited by JordanTurbo on Thursday 27th March 18:13
Hope they weren't the internally serrated ones! getmecoatbiggrin

Mojocvh

16,837 posts

261 months

Thursday 27th March 2014
quotequote all
Dr Jekyll said:
Ginetta G15 Girl said:
That would certainly help. For eg the knowledge that banking a swept wing a/c invariably leads to a nose down pitch.
Would that still apply in a Hansa Jet?

Note the angles of the wing and t tail leading edges.... wink