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Aviation History
1985
1985 - 1728.PDF
EUROPE'S AEROSPACE CHALLENGE Maintaining the Harrier Connection Britain and America's V/Stol collaboration appears to be heading in two directions: subsonic derivatives of the Harrier; and a super sonic aircraft for service early next century. Graham Warwick reports. '. '.v. X ' :';:?/"."'v'.'. "i J''.,'-•• • |X3XX3fc.S'>: Transatlantic Co-operation i20 It reads like a soap opera script: a shot gun marriage, separation, then recon ciliation and a second honeymoon. Britain and America's collaboration on the V/Stol Harrier is in its second decade, and reached a major milestone on April 30 with the maiden flight of the first UK- assembled Harrier II. Can the Harrier connection continue into a third decade, and a third generation of vectored-thrust V/Stol aircraft? In a world where the two-way street is more often than not closed in one direc tion by political roadworks, the Harrier, and now its stablemate, the Hawk, are held up as examples of how transatlantic collaboration can be made to work. April's maiden flight of British Aerospace's first Harrier GR.5 was not reached without setback, however. Almost as soon as its September 1968 evaluation of the Hawker Siddeley Harrier was complete, the US Marine Corps had to fight for the aircraft it considered ideal. First, the US Navy had to be pressured to buy the Harrier on the Marines' behalf, then Congress had to be persuaded to approve funding. As part of that persua sion, McDonnell Douglas in 1969 signed an agreement that would allow the Harrier to be built under licence in the USA. That licence expired in 1984 without the US company having built a single aircraft out of the 102 AV-8As and eight two-seat TAV-8As bought by the Marines. Includ • ing 13 aircraft ordered by Spain through the USA, AV-8 manufacture almost doubled the UK's Harrier production run. Although unfulfilled, the licence agree ment led Britain and the USA to under take joint studies of Harrier devel opments, beginning in 1972 with the so-called "AV-16". The subsonic AV-16A was intended to have twice the payload/range per formance of the AV-8A, and was based around a new engine, the Pegasus 15. There were also joint studies of a super sonic design, the AV-16S, using plenum chamber burning to boost engine thrust. Development cost of the AV-16A was FLIGHT International, 1 June 1985 ^» 1 1 i i A \ 4 1 •i t 4 •»
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