The Marines have trained their last two AV-8 Harrier II pilots as the Corps begins the final phaseout of the VTOL jet. “The significance of the last replacement pilot training flight in the Harrier community is that it is the beginning of the end for us as a community,” said Capt. Joshua Corbett, who with Capt. Sven Jorgensen who flew their final training flights at Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Cherry Point, North Carolina, last Friday.

“The Harrier, more than many aircraft that I have come across, elicits an emotional response. For members of the public, members of the aviation community, members of the Marine community, and especially members of the Harrier pilot community, it’s bittersweet. All good things have to come to an end, and it’s our turn soon, but not yet.”

The Harrier, an adaptation of the British airplane of the same name, will be replaced by the F-35B, which has a vertical thrust fan midships and pivoting tail nozzle to aid with extremely short takeoffs and allow vertical landings. The transition will be complete in September of 2026. The Harrier has been in service for 40 years and is known for its ruggedness and versatility. Most recently it has been credited with numerous drone kills in the Red Sea while protecting merchant shipping from Houthi rebel attacks.

Russ Niles
Russ Niles
http://www.avweb.com
Russ Niles is Editor-in-Chief of AVweb. He has been a pilot for 30 years and joined AVweb 22 years ago. He and his wife Marni live in southern British Columbia where they also operate a small winery.

23 COMMENTS

  1. The introductory image displayed on the accompanying video is nothing but a fake clickbait image.

  2. Agree, I don’t know what that is doing there. It is not a screenshot from the video and nothing that ever happened in real life.

  4. When I was taking flying lessons in ’79 there was one in the shop at the local FBO for months being repaired after a hard landing that I witnessed. It was demonstrating a hover at about 50′ in an air show and the alcohol injection (so I heard) failed and it couldn’t maintain thrust. It just sank in a level attitude and hit hard. The pilot wasn’t injured and the aircraft looked fine but it required months of repairs.

  6. I was one of a fortunate handful of Navy Tailhook pilots that flew the AV-8A with the Marines in the early 70’s after Vietnam. Those were exciting times in a new concept that unfortunately some didn’t survive. Actually the alcohol injection was “only for the pilot”…the Harrier used “water” injection to cool the engine at max operating “short lift” conditions but was limited to about 90 seconds of water. That meant when the water ran out in a hover you were going to land due to loss of thrust. There are many airshow pilot stories of close calls at high density altitude, high ambient temperature show-sites. Actually, the Harrier was built to sustain a pretty firm drop from a hover as long as the landing was wings level.

  7. at MCAS Beaufort, SC with VMA-513 flying the AV-8A in April of 1971. I was the Safety Officer in VMA-513 when the mishap mentioned above occured. The Harrier does not have alcohol injection, but water injection. It was the water pump that failed.

    • Flipped, with left handed salutes, SENIRAM on the wing and other backwards stuff.

      I can’t read the captions and enjoy the film too, so I opted for the film.

  11. The clickbait manoeuvre actually resembles the ‘Farley Climb’, but that would have started from a much higher hover height. Only did one of those on a famil trip in a Royal Navy T8 version – fantastic machine.

  12. The late John Farley and I did our initial et training together on Vampire T11 & FB5. This last had no ejection seat being a WW2 design. Then to the 3rd all thru Hunter rose on the F4. There were no 2 seat T7s then, so the first trip in the Hunter was just that, a huge advance on the Vampire. I recall John having a left main gear fail to extend, low on fuel as we all were at the end of a trip, which made the subsequent arrival spectacular A long sweeping curve across the field when the wing dropped, a great cloud of dust and earth from which we heard John’s calm voice “How about that for a landing then?” He was analysing when lesser men, such as me, would have been hanging on and hoping nothing would go bang. It didn’t and we met for a beer in the bar later, After the F4 we were both posted to 2nd TAF in Germany on the F6, a vast improvement on the F4, during the height of the Cold War in late 1950s. John went from there to ETPS and the rest of his brilliant test pilots career is in the book “View from the Hover” I am mentioned in it, but nothing to do with flight. My own career was 2 years in Arabia on the Hunter FGA9 & FR10, during a slightly warmer war, then after about 1000 hours on this splendid ship, left for civilian life flying big metal, mostly Boeings, my favourite being the 747-400. A long way from Hunter days. John Farley is long dead, nut remembered by his fiends. Mac McL

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