Though the Harrier is a
design concept that's now more than 20 years old,
she is uniquely equipped for the number of roles
she'll have to play in any prolonged confrontation in the South Atlantic.
Flying low
to minimize the chance of detection by radar, her head-up display presents
the pilot with vital flight information in his line
of sight out of the cockpit.
The need to look away to the controls
is kept to a minimum.
Though she's the only military
aircraft in the West to be able to take off vertically.
Such a maneuver reduces dramatically the amount of fuel
or the weapons the aircraft can carry.
Using a take off ramp
known as the ski jump, Invincible was the first ship to be fitted with one
and that was just 12 months ago, can increase her fuel load
or the amount of weapons she carries by as much as 30%.
This will allow the aircraft, if the mission demands, to travel
120 miles from her mothership, loiter for one and a half hours
with reserves for just three minutes of combat activity.
But all the while,
in direct radio contact with her mothership, able to pick up
a complete picture of what's happening throughout the area from base
radar.
The Harrier's own
advanced radar serves two distinct functions.
Air to air search, allowing the pilot to identify a potential target
and then remove other irrelevant information
from the screen.
Then, working with the aircraft's onboard computer,
the radar can feed the head up display with target details
automatically tracking the target leaving to the pilot the decision
whether or not to fire his heat seeking missile.
The anti-aircraft sidewinder heat
seekers are mounted directly under the wingtips.
But for its ground attack role, the Harrier is likely to carry
two clusters of 68 mm rockets, 19 in each cluster.
So under the aircraft
are five mix and match weapon mountings, two missiles perhaps under the wingtips,
rockets or extra fuel tanks inboard with gun pods directly under the fuselage.
Whilst she may well find herself under attack from missiles
like the sea dart, in her ground attack role, as this training film shows,
her two rocket clusters give her potent firepower.
As well as giving her the ability of vertical takeoff,
the Harrier's variable direction
engine ducts give her a high degree of maneuverability in the air.
Altering the direction of her 21 and a half thousand pounds of thrust
allows the pilot to decelerate very quickly and reposition
to gain maximum advantage in a dogfight,
even possibly to avoid missiles.
One has to say, possibly
because the action in the South Atlantic is the first time
in its two decades that the Harrier has been used in anger anywhere.
And remembering that the American Marines also have more
than a hundred of these versatile machines, it's hardly surprising, perhaps,
that her performance and the performance of the men who fly her
are some of the reasons why the Russians are paying so much attention
to what is currently happening around the Falklands.