Sir - The British Aerospace Harrier, featured in the UK BBC national television programme Defence of the realm on 22 August, has been part of the Royal Air Force inventory for 30 years or more.
The question which must surely be asked is why the RAF has operated for so long an expensive and complex vertical/short take-off and landing (V/STOL) aircraft without exploiting fully its design characteristics (a short period of service in Belize and shipborne deployment during the Falklands conflict are the exceptions). The Harrier was designed during the Cold War to be operated with the British Army within a 90km (50nm) radius of its field base as a close-air-support/reconnaissance aircraft.
In the BBC programme, the aircraft was shown on exercises from its base in Wittering, UK, and on operations over Bosnia from a temporary base in Italy - at all times using conventional runways. At no time, it seems, does the role of the aircraft require it to be used for vertical take-offs and landings, although these are practised regularly from specially prepared surfaces.
Surely, as a subsonic aircraft with no radar, it is less than ideal as a high-level interceptor. As a ground-attack bomber, it is again slow and its inherent complexity of design becomes a penalty in terms of weapon-carrying capability. Other, dedicated, aircraft in RAF service fulfil both these roles better.
It would seem that the only realistic deployment of the Harrier, in which its V/STOL characteristics would be fully exploited, is as a carrier-borne, ground-attack naval aircraft on board the Royal Navy's through-deck cruisers - which have no angled decks, no catapult and no arrestor wires. This would augment the attack capability of the Sea Harrier radar-equipped, multi-role, force, upon which so many demands are now made.
Between the World Wars, the RAF was invited aboard the then-current conventional carriers, but the attempt at permanent combined operations was a mistake. So as not make the same mistake again, surely it would be preferable for the Royal Navy to take over the RAF Harrier force.
It is interesting to note that the US Air Force never accepted the Harrier. It was adopted, and successfully developed, as a carrier-borne aircraft (the BAe-McDonnell Douglas AV-8B) by the US Marine Corps.
MAURICE HYNETT
Christchurch, Dorset, UK
Source: Flight International
