Counted them all out...

[Arch]

It's very hard to believe they've 'gone'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11996936

Fabulous things. One of my favourite airshow moments would be the bow to the crowd. And at Elvington once, it flew over, and disappeared behind a line of trees. Pause. More Pause. It had turned round, snuck in low up to the tree line, almost unheard, and then rose up, thundering, from behind the trees. Like an alien spacecraft appearing, it was.

A bugger to make in Airfix thought, getting the four vector thrusters to all stay glued in the right orientation....

 

[twentysix by twentyfive]

Indeed Arch. A wonderful aircraft. Great shame, end of an era.....

Will McDonnell-Douglas still be making it in the US of A? I know BAe will stop.

So that's Concorde, The Harrier and Ark Royal. What next?

 

[Arch]

So that's Concorde, The Harrier and Ark Royal. What next?

Postmen on bikes.

Sanity. No, sorry, that went already.

Last one to leave, turn the lights off....

 

[addictfreak]

An even bigger shame to loose the Harrier, when its replacement isnt even ready yet.

Im sure the troops in Afganistan will miss it too its a fantastic ground support aircraft.


you may enjoy this shot of a Harrier pilot show boating:


View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRfDsSnLtE4&feature=related

 

[upsidedown]

I had the good fortune to spend some time on Invincible in the 80s, the noise the Harriers make close up is unbelievable and it's a bit of an odd experience seeing a jet hovering a few feet from you.
Much like Concorde we'll forget how to do it and future generations will be poorer for it.

 

[Arch]

An even bigger shame to loose the Harrier, when its replacement isnt even ready yet.

Im sure the troops in Afganistan will miss it too its a fantastic ground support aircraft.


you may enjoy this shot of a Harrier pilot show boating:

http://www.youtube.c...feature=related

Excellent! Reminds me of this:


View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S61zLcMFp1A&feature=related


I like how under that Harrier low fly video, there are all those kids saying it's fake. Have they no idea how good pilots are (and what a sense of humour they generally have!)?

I'm no fan of war, but how sad is it that we now don't have a jet that can fly off a carrier?

Mind you, I've got pics of my Dad landing on carriers (mostly prop planes), thank goodness he before the Harrier's time, there wouldn't be any left....

 

[Arch]

This one is the one, I think, with 'Whoops' written on the back.



Here's a jet one. Note the whole ship's company having lined up to watch what he does this time... (which was, amazingly, not break it)



Even on dry land, it didn't always go well...

 

[Corvette chic]

Where that your dad Arch????? Amazing photographs.... I wept a little watching it on TV and I did when Concorde did it's last flight...

 

[skudupnorth]

I'm going to try and get over to Woddford before they chop up the most expensive bit of un-flown scrap metal in the shape of two Nimrods,it's been a bad year for British aviation

 

[Arch]

Where that your dad Arch????? Amazing photographs.... I wept a little watching it on TV and I did when Concorde did it's last flight...

Apparently it was, yes. Flying (well, landing) wasn't one of his strengths. Although carrier landings were very difficult I gather. Looking at his old photos, I think the things he did best were wear very large tropical shorts (stationed in Sri Lanka), and take part in the Officers' Mess Amateur Dramatic productions of Terence Rattigan plays.

We have a little snippet of diary (well, just sheets of paper), he kept, transferring a bomber back to Scotland from India. There is scant metereological and aviation info, and always a mention of the meal and drinks they had at each overnight stop. My Mum reckons they just kept outrunning the mess bills...

I wish things had been better between us when he was alive, and I'd had more chance to get him to tell me about all the pictures.

Funny though how we get attached to lumps of metal. The Spitfire, the Harrier, Concorde. Partly the associations I guess (Battle of Britain, British technological advances), but partly something difficult to define with regard to beauty. Concorde and the Spitfire are beautiful - why? The Harrier, less so I think, but its agility and 'muscle' is perhaps its beauty.

 

[Renard]

Seems a strange decision to leave a gap in the force's capabilities. Sums up this government and probably the start of worse to come.

I felt slightly emotional when I saw the story on the news. An end of an era.

 

[gbb]

RAF Wittering's just up the road, it just won't seem the same without them. Driving alongside the airbase on the A1, to have a Harrier coming in to land right over your car roof, maybe 50 feet above you...the thunder from the engines phenomenal.

I can still remember my first and most exciting sighting...about 1970, waking up one morning to a thunderous, endless roar over the mothballed airbase we were living on near Nottingham. Jumped up to the bedroom window to see this plane hovering just above the treeline about 500 yards away. I didnt even know what plane it was. Just stood there dumbstruck...it turned out there was a military exercise being held there, a weekend of gunshots, jets, soldiers....mental to a young teenager. We were straight out on the base when they'd gone....looking for evidence.

 

[Arch]

RAF Wittering's just up the road, it just won't seem the same without them. Driving alongside the airbase on the A1, to have a Harrier coming in to land right over your car roof, maybe 50 feet above you...the thunder from the engines phenomenal.

Yeah, I've done exactly that, just there. Amazing.

 

[Headgardener]

I know the Harrier is over forty years old and Concorde about the same so why aren't we as a country designing and building the next generation of the these aircraft with modern avionics and airframe technology? Seem as if we as a country just give up once it's been shown that it can be done .

 

[Fnaar]

I don't have any military/air force background or anything, but even I was sad to see these beautiful bits of machinery go.