The Single Aircraft That Almost Wiped Out Everything You Know About Aviation
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.ย. 2024
- It is September 8, 1961, and the test airfield in Dunsfold, England, is abuzz with anticipation. The Hawker Siddeley P.1127 jet is about to embark on a daring experiment by attempting to perform the world’s first vertical take-off that successfully transitions into horizontal flight before completing its journey with a vertical landing. Years of intense research and development have built up to this moment; should the P.1127 succeed, it could potentially revolutionize aircraft design and the nature of flight itself.
As the crowd of eager engineers, technicians, and military officials look on, the jet’s groundbreaking Rolls-Royce Pegasus engine roars to life, its distinctive swiveling nozzles thrusting air downwards to lift the aircraft straight up off the tarmac. As the P.1127 hovers in mid-air, the tension is palpable, the onlookers wait with bated breath to see if it will be able to transition smoothly into horizontal flight without losing stability or control.
Suddenly, the aircraft noses forward, gathering speed as it levels out. Cheers erupt across the airfield, but the test isn’t over until the P.1127 shows it can complete the cycle with a vertical landing. As the jet slows down, silence befalls the crowd as they wait to find out if they will indeed witness history in the making…
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During the Falklands War the Sea Harrier gave an exceptional account of itself.🇬🇧
It certainly did, marvellous aircraft. But what we also needed was an interceptor, F4 Phantom to intercept the inbound Argentinian aircraft much further out before reaching the fleet. We had no fix wing carriers then, and we haven’t got them now. That’s politicians for you, they expect fully comprehensive insurance cover for third party premiums - t’was ever thus
Sadly this episode is a month late, I regularly watched ur vids with my 94 yr old grandad, he had more hours on the harrier than any pilot and was oldest fighter pilot ever in raf , he flew the hunter too and meteor , he sadly passed last month , gutted we didn’t get to see this episode, thankfully one of his harriers is in a museum so can be reminded of him
Sorry for your loss we will never know a more noble time that your grandad was born in the UK people just got on with it and they must have been ashamed of how we have messed up the opportunity they gave us all may he rest in peace 🕊️
I saw a Harrier at an Airshow when I was a kid in the late 70s- hovered right over the runway near the crowd- LOUD and very cool! Always felt it didn’t get the attention it deserved!
I saw 2 Harriers 'in the wild' land vertically at PAFB(Now Space Force Base) while out surfing and I can affirm they were extremely loud. This was in the late 1990s.
Yes. Louder than an Air Canada DC-9.
That's a Buccaneer on the Thumbnail man. Completely different roles, size/style.
Yeah I clicked wanting a vid on the buccaneer.
@@billwill7383 So did I.
Not surprised, he plagiarizes his commentary from Wikipedia pages. I was watching this video and looking at the p.1127/kestrel wiki page, as I'm reading and listening to the vid I started to notice that what I was reading was being said on the video. He changes a few words and phrases but in some parts it's word for word what's written on the wiki page. Smh
@@robwernet9609interesting
He does this on purpose to promote comments- so I guess we’ve been sucked in
"Makes you proud to be British"
Tricky to fly, so only the RAFs crème de la crème got to fly it.
And makes you ashamed to be British when we gave them away on the promise of buying the flop from America. Our 'leaders' once again proved their incompetence or corruption.
Hard to beleive there was less than 60 years between the Wright bros and this. Amazing.
This was truly a visionary design. The need for VTOL aircraft is still very underestimated.
I agree. I live near RAF Manston, Kent UK which is sadly now closed to the most part, but I remember being at an Airshow one year when a Harrier hovered along the runway and back again. The truly startling thing was that it did the latter going backwards. A truly magnicent machine as it was to prove perfectly in the Falklands War. I also saw a documentary where a RAF Test Pilot wondered what would happen if you rotated the engines in level forward flight and he found it would lift upwards and could be lowered again just as simply. This technique was apparently honed by pilots, who could evade an enemy fighter by doing this when talied, lifting out of its way, letting it pass below, and drop behind it to attack it. It is a wonderful machine.
@@isthereanybodyoutthere9397 I still see the Harrier and AV8B as a more reliable aircraft than the F-35.
WTF has happened to us as a Nation of engineers 😢
@@royerrington4871 The same thing that happened to the USA and other nations. Corporate CEOs and stakeholders with help from politicians sent real jobs overseas in their aspirations to go from a manufacturing economy to a service one.
@@royerrington4871 If it's not a bank the political elite could not give a damn.
The UK is one of the most corrupt developed countries in the world, politicians just hide it well.
In fact they don't even hide it that well, the TSR-2 is a perfect example. You would have to be lobotomized to not realise that the government was paid off to scrap that project. Nearly 2 billion in today's money wasted. At a time when America was coincidentally trying to sell a competitor to the TSR-2, the f-111 aardvark.
If the UK wasn't corrupt Harold Wilson would have been hung for treason.
If I had to pick my top 20 planes of all time the Harrier would definitely be on that list.
Damn straight
I was an AV-8B Harrier ejection seat mechanic in the USMC. It was a very impressive bird, but an absolute maintenance hog. When I was in, they required about 19 man hours of maintenance per 1 engine hour.
I remember seeing one of these at an open day at an American air base and made me truly proud to be British as it raised from behind trees , and of course they proved there worth in the Falklands conflict
Many thanks from the United States Marine Corps.
Semper Fi !!!
The Harrier was way ahead of it’s time. Only now are other planes superseding it at much greater cost.
Like 750x more
There aren't any VTOL planes are there? Lockheeds F-35 Lightning can land vertically and has a short take-off, but not vertical and the Boeing Osprey is really a helicopter isn't it? I think only the Harrier was true VTOL in a plane.
At one point, during the nineties, I’d worked on every AV8B in service, including the Night Attack variants.
I worked on the HUD and, for many years, was the only technician manufacturing new and reworking a part of the HUD.
I was not physically able to join the armed forces so did the next best thing.
From the age of 17, I worked until retirement in a company, manufacturing and supplying modules to other defence contractors and the military direct.
I am very proud of that. 🇬🇧
I was in the military when the American version was being tested...that was in the '83-'84 time frame.
There is no American version.
There is harrier 1 which was 100% British.
Then there was the sea harrier also 100% British.
Finally there is the harrier 2 which was a large more powerful sea harrier, partially financed & part built by America under licence.
In the American built harrier, Only the cockpit instrument were American, everything else was British design.
Initial image shows a Blackburn Buccaneer, wrong plane
It’s sad that it was discarded due to lack of imagination and potential. But at least it lives on in the marine corps.
It wasn't really discarded. They just took what was learned and made a better version and called it the harrier.
The AV-8
@@moshunit96 The Harrier has not been used by UK forces since about 2010...
It was retired for good reasons. While the Pegasus cold thrust engine allowed for vertical flight it severely limited the aircraft in both speed and payload. These limitations could not be overcome without a completely new approach such as the mechanical forward lift fan in the F35 which allows the rear nozzle to operate at far higher temperatures. We will no doubt see the Harrier continue with nation's which need SVTOL capabilities but cannot afford to buy or maintain F35s. I'm honestly surprised the Chinese haven't attempted to acquire or clone the design as it would allow them a proven fleet air capability while they get to grips with all the problems their current approach is causing. Their large carriers have both structural and system issues and their carrier aircraft are proving underpowered and unreliable.
@@ianjardine7324 Tell the US marine corp that Harrier is no good. The reason Britain stopped using them is 1. our politicians are stupid 2. they rather waste money on stuff we do not need like a high speed railway to link two cities 120miles apart, to save a few minutes ( HS2 ) which is costing £1billion per mile to build.
I used to visit Dunsfold Aerodrome every year for the British Aerospace staff Saturday display during one weekend each summer. An uncle of mine used to work at the Kingston Factory building the Harrier where the fuselage & wings were made. My uncle was a construction engineer on the wings. Each aircraft was then transported to Dunsfold to have final assemble to a fully completed aircraft and the first test flight of each aircraft was made at Dunsfold. Those were wonderful memories that lasted my entire childhood throughout the 1970’s and beyond. The factory was on the bank of the Thames, north of Kingston and once the Harrier production came to the end, the factory site was sold and is now an housing estate, built in the early 1990’s. Dunsfold still exists and is better known as the location for the classic years of Top Gear. Harrier: The only fighter Jet American forces bought that wasn’t developed in the states - Now that’s a unique achievement.
Historic note: My uncle told me of what happened after The Falklands War. It was kept secret for a couple of decades until the production ended.
On return of the aircraft carriers to the UK, all aircraft flew to Dunsfold and were disassembled for a full service and inspection at the factory. The marine version, Sea Harrier, fared very well considering and were renovated and updated for further service with only one or two relegated for spares only. The standard Harriers however, that were transported to the South Atlantic, were only supposed to be used on the Islands themselves once we had landed and made a base. Due to the pressure of sorties they were flown off the carriers and did hundreds of sorties at Sea. Upon return for inspection, all the normal Harrier airframes were condemned and scrapped as the salt water environment had corroded structures and components to the point of destruction. The exposure to the marine environment was mainly post victory, until the ships finally got back to the UK. They were wrapped and sealed for the journey by sea to the Falklands and were never intended for Carrier duty but land base and attack. The Sea Harrier used a lot of stainless steel were required but the normal harrier did not.
I worked on them for 15 years of my RAF service and 3 as a civvy contractor, they are dirty oily beasts but have a special place in my heart.
I was a radio operator in cherry point in 1970. I talked to the pilot of the first one to land there. I was in a tactical air command center.
The Kestrel is such an apt name for this aircraft as the small falcon can hover as it hunts for its food.
🏆⭐🤗🎖️
Thank you for sharing this
I had the honour to be an engineer on the Sea Harrier frs1 with 899 and 801 Naval Air Squadrons of the Fleet Air Arm 😊 great times. Should never have gotten rid!!?
I was lucky enough as a young boy to have seen the P1127 at Farnborough in the early sixties.
Fantastic footage of it on the carrier deck.
Tje Harrier or jump jet know by that from the USMC.This same jet.defeated Argentina in the Falkland War & Argentina had supersonic jets.while the Harrier is subsonic. The Marines.used them to good effect in tje Persian Gulf Wars 1 & 2 .My favorite British jet,my favorite American jet I'd the A-10 Warthog,favorite helicopter is the Apache & then the Cobra & Super Cobra.Ant nation with these weapons platforms will be hard to defeat unless overwhelmed or caught.on the ground!
We beat the Argies' Mirages by using a technique called 'viffing' which utilised the variable thrust nozzles by causing the Harrier to suddenly change it's horizontal axis to a vertical one, breaking both missile lock and allowing the Mirage to pass under giving the Harrier pilot it's own missile lock and shooting the supersonic plane down or damaging it beyond the ability to fight.
Viffing was developed by the Harrier pilots, and it was the only plane in the World to be able to do it.
Amazingly, though there were, and are, many VTOL types nothing, not even the F-38 Lightning, that has ever matched the Harrier, which is why the USMC prefer it.
Stupid UK govts have always liked it's new bells and whistles. Imagine the Harrier with new fly-by-wire, if it doesn't already have it, avionics!
The original airframe might not have the ability to deal new engines, but with new alloys and materials, why not?
The new Lightnings have never really impressed, except for stealth capability, although the Israelis have, as usual, used them to it's best capability lately against Iran, and I will bet humbugs to matchsticks that they have, as usual,*improved* on what the Americans though their best efforts.
Well said...USAF same attitude regarding A10 & B52
Vectoring In Forward Flight. something the F35 cannot do.
Maybe if he shows a thumbnail of a Harrier we'll get a video of the Buccaneer?🤔
I'm holding out for a VTOL Bucc.
I used to work on these diffuser’s in England for GE, welding the material which if I remember rightly was PE11, we used to work the night shift for about 3 years we had problems concerning cracks in the welds, it all turned out there were faulty welding rods which the day shift were aware of but never bothered to share with the night shift, must have cost the company millions
I saw the thumbnail and thought "what's so special about the Buccaneer........".
As a young boy of 7 or 8 years old, I went to an RAF open day at RAF Upavon where my uncle was serving. This would have been around 1963/64. There I saw the first ever public demonstration of the P1127 doing a vertical take off and landing. As a plane mad boy this the most exciting thing I had ever seen and remains up there in the top 10.
I was watching this 1960s series called "the Saint" staring Roger Moore. And. what pops up on it.?? Video of a Harrier Jump Jet. I had no idea it had been around that long.. Wow..
I remember seeing Harrier GR3 at RAF Gutersloh in Germany as a kid.
I watched the first Sea Landing on HMS Ark Royal from the Goofing deck 1963. Still have the black &white photographs.
The house I grew up in' back window (my bedroom) used to over look RAF Waddington, every morning I was greeted by at least a handful of Mushroom Planes (E3 Sentry) parked up.
I'll never forget the sound and sight of a Harrier performing a VTOL, that shit blew my tiny little 6 year old brain!
Sadly, now all I get to see is the Red Arrows training 3 times a day and the occasional Typhoon from Coningsby. Damm! 😏
No experience I found like seeing one in real life just hovering there on its ingenious RR Pegasus engine thrusters. Sheesh! Such inventive brilliance. 👍
British innovation and engineering at its best it's shame we fail at capitalising on these ideas at a financial level unlike the USA
I remember seeing the Harrier at various air shows here in the UK and the sight and sound of it hovering, flying backwards and taking a bow have always stayed with me. Remarkable aircraft that was short sightedly decommissioned by the government to save money. I always hoped they'd develop and improve them to be capable of supersonic flight, but alas....it was not to be. I am glad to see them still in use by the USA, our strongest and respected ally. I hope that when we took them out of service they were all shipped across the pond to begin a new life or keep others going.
Awesome aircraft. When I was a child, I wondered if a plane such as this would be made.
And it still serves today 55 years on.
And then came along the Yak-38, and we laughed at it's name and the struggles it had to even ger airborne
This is pretty cool and interesting
At the RAF museum in Cosfort there is a Kestrel. And Dunsfold, where later the famous Top Gear fastest car circuit was.
As someone without a patriotic bone in my body and a hatred of war Im still saddened by the demise of this genius aircraft.
I used to love seeing the Harrier Jump Jets
always wondered
what the pilot of
the harrier thought
of the ufo calvine
picture
Thank you. It was a fascinating era for aviation. Did you guys ever do a video or heard of the silent aircraft that flew over Vietnam? They were based on gliders with huge wooden props.
Useful payload was a major issue. That's why it went from VTOL to VSTOL.
Hey why Bucc on thumbnail
'First vertical takeoff with a transition to horizontal and a vertical landing'.............UMMMM Helicopter!!
Yet another British development that the US benefitted from.
But also the Harrier project was helped along by the USMC interest & McDonnell's agreement to get involved as it improved the viability of the project with a substantial increase in the number of aircraft & RR manufactured engines required.
I enjoyed this Vid. The harrier is a very scary piece of equipment.
This guy reads straight from the Wiki page
The AV-8A, had a high mishap rate of 31.77 accidents per 100,000 flight time. 3 times more the the F/A-18 and 5 times more then the A-10. Pilots described it as "unforgiving to fly", also one squadron called it the widow maker. .thought I put that in.
Didn't know that USA and NATO were interested in the beginning. Brilliant aircraft. Up their with my top 10 extraordinary aircraft. 👽👍
The place to go to see all the development aircraft and ski ramp test rigs is the Fleet Air Arm museum Yeovil
Bristol did a hell of a lot of good things, the Olympus engine for one.
Given the Location of the test flight was it the Stig at the controls ??
In our approach to Sydney AU back in May of 87' aboard USS Midway (CV-41). USMC Harrier jets from the USS Peleliu (? maybe) did recovery and launch exercises on our angel deck for a few hours. !!!-VERY COOL-!!!
That quote by Sydney Cam about sophistication of projects should be memorized by current vehicle makers and treated as gospel. Over engendering of EVs will be cause of their slow death ( again).
There is a list of reasons why do many regard 90s as time of peak car development.
Changed Warfare in the Falklands. US Marines saw this and..Slow but stupidly maneuverable to the Mirage French Mirage II's. The pilots of the Harrier would simply do a Dead stick stop and drop 100 feet then require and shoot an AIM-9 then regain speed. The Low and Slow worked for them for the terrain as they could hide in a range of mountains and wait for the opponent to fly over then rise and target with a missile that tracks heat for 15 miles. America's best at the time. At least it had a gun!
I believe the Americans discovered 'Viffing' or vectoring in forward flight which made the aircraft jump upwards and slow down dramatically allowing faster jets to pass by and be attacked from behind.
2nd time I know of from Dark Skies with the thumbnail image not matching the actual aircraft discussed in the video. This time showing a Buccaneer not a Harrier and 5 months ago a video titled "The Metal US Bomber That Drove Everyone Crazy" showing a different plane in the thumbnail from the Martin B10 discussed in that vid.
The Kestrel was a wonderful idea, made better in order to become the AV8B.
1:27 My first thought was "That's Abe Vigoda."
The original idea and the predecessor from which the harrier was developed was built by ShortBros and Harland the SC1
The final version of the Pegasus Engine produced 24,000 lbs of thrust
Could you do a segment if you haven't already on Lockheed Martin's new hypersonic missile called Mako?
Still stunning.
Man I was -3 months old when this happened. I remember it like the time I ran into a couple of dinosaurs
I heard somewhere that it was a dogfighters dream machine. With a bandit at 6 it could just vector up in a maneuver completely impossible to follow in any other aircraft.
Oh please Dark Skies, you don't have to resort to click bait in your thumbnails. A Harrier looks cool enough on its own.
This had been tested and tested prior to this public display.
Can you do a video of BC Thomas who landed in Norway with a SR 71 or when the sr71 had engine trouble and was forced to fly at 5k ft and the viggens came out escort it came to escort stopped Russian migs from shooting it down
No mention of the Falkland Islands? Supposedly where the Harrier showed off it's VTOL advantages in real war/conflict scenarios.
To be pedantic, it used a Bristol Siddeley Pegasus engine, not a Rolls. They bought BS a few years later.
Sad to see that we were so innovative in this country now we can't even make a wooden box I UK
America handed them a cheque and said keep going.. They knew!
The aircraft was initially called Kestral before entering service as Harrier after modifications, I read they added small air jets in wing tips and front and rear of plane to aid stability in hover. I also read they were working on a bigger engine that would have given mach1 speed and bigger plane with larger pay loads but funding was not maintained and Bristol was merged into Rolls Royce and engine died as no funds just another what if of if uk had not been broke but Harrier lead a spirted life in uk till Mr Cameron killed it before its time again down to money saving rather than common sense.
The film of the JJ was not the first time it had done this, it was the first time it was shown what it can do, it was one of the poorest kept secret many ordinary people of the street knew about this plane in 1961, beautiful plane, the only bad thing about it was the fuel and how much it used doing vertical take off and landing, it is a problem even today with the new types, even the Osprey uses a lot of fuel on a standing takeoff
The Harrier JJ do have the best safely record going and the Osprey the worse as to date
Its not often that UK makes a plane that is purchased by the USA.
These VTOL planes are useful to the army and marines for the same reasons as helicopters; they provide tactical ground support with little or no runway space. The air force has little use for them, not fast & powerful enough for air combat or strategic attack roles. With the possible exception of the F-35 Lightning.
Why is the thumbnail a buccaneer and the video is about the harrier?????
I see you’re new to the channel.
Huh? It's the P1127. The design concept outlasted them all for decades. But it was the Americans that put the plastic wing on it and gave it decades more service.
The AV-8B changed aviation history from the British to American
Although it didn't go super sonic it served its purpose especially during the first first Gulf war
The AV8B harrier
Was getting old and outdated until the US decided to start up a new VSTOL programs with Boeing x32 and Lockheed Martin f35
Battle of the x-planes from PBS
So in reality we have a new version of the harrier flying
Called the f35
🕊️ Of ✌️
The Argentinians name for it was the 'black death'
British engineering at its best.
thats the old topgear test track right?
The Argentinian Air Force had nothing to look down lock on.
Made in England.
The cover page on the video is a Buccaneer!
There is no device that defies gravity! Unintelligent title.
I suppose not using the real image in your thumbnail was for what purpose? It wasn't an error.
Pity the supersonic verstion p1154 i think, got cancelled.
that would have been a nice fighter attack plane. and maybe even upgraded as years went by to modern standards.
how come USA didnt have a hovering jet until recently but they must have solved the balance issue on the moon lander
The USMC have operated the AV-8B from 1983 and some are still in service.
A test bed to train pilots in flying the harrier was used to train pilots to operate the Lunar lander. Neil Armstrong crashed one of these training rigs.
Wasn’t the Short SC.1 the First VTOL not the Harrier? SC.1 first flight in 1958 and the P.1127/Harrier in 1960
True, but the SC1 was a one trick pony, a proof of concept aircraft. The Kestrel was designed as a capable combat aircraft .
1127 was a technology demonstrator. I saw the first teathered flight at Dunsfold.
better to stop then land than land then stop
I’m waiting on the jet from the Avengers to become a reality…😳
That's not a buccaneer it's a hawker p1127 😅
So it’s about the P.1127 Kestrel/Harrier but the thumbnail is a Buccaneer. Usual lack of attention to detail from Dark Skies - especially when it comes to British aircraft and development.
😊❤😊❤😊❤😊❤😊
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OK, a bit confusing, I thought this would be about the Buccaneer pictured :-s
Very interesting. Why was there no modern successor to the Harrier today (The F35 is not quite the true Harrier)? and only a limited no of armed services purchased the aircraft in, er, not very large no?
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The British contributed so much to modern aviation, but got so little back from it. I blame the political class. Case in point: Concorde. The British government wanted to back out after after a certain point. However, Charles de Gaulle would have none of it, and it is because of French insistance that Concorde ultimately became a reality. This is not a putdown to British engineers and technicians who were more than prepared to do their part regardless.
While the British get the lion's share of credit for Concorde's success, at the end of the day, it's what the French were responsible for that made Concorde able to sustain mach II without use of reheaters, namely low drag wing design and construction. The Russian Tupolev 144 had more powerful engines, but was unable to match this feat, making it unusable in commercial application. Just goes to show British and French can do great things when they cooperate and work together on a common goal.