Advanced Harrier Projects

[Scott Kenny]

I've discovered in Air Enthusiast of May 1972 that the Harrier T.52 G-VTOL could be modified with extended "big-wing" tips of 27 inch for ferry flights.
View attachment 722503

Wish those had been more standard, but I suspect they didn't have a combat maneuvering G load.

 

[BlackBat242]

Exactly, the Blue Fox antenna diameter was about 4 inches smaller across than the Harrier II Plus' AN/APG-65.

APG-65 antenna diameter: AV-8B+ = 22.8" vs F/A-18A/B = 26.625"
Source: The Naval Institute Guide to World Naval Weapons Systems, 1997-1998

Blue Fox Antenna Diameter = 20 in

Blue Vixen Antenna Diameter - ??

 

[Kiltonge]

Found on @PaleoAero Twitter , no source given. Ferry tips provided a 9% L/D improvement.

And for reference, an actual ferry tip that was for sale online.
"DANGER POWER CONTROL AND JET BLAST".

 

[P1127]

I've discovered in Air Enthusiast of May 1972 that the Harrier T.52 G-VTOL could be modified with extended "big-wing" tips of 27 inch for ferry flights.
View attachment 722503

All first Gen harriers could use them, but they weren't used very often - as they weren't suitable for combat use, you had to replace them, so you needed sets of normal wing tips to follow. They were used on T birds going to Malta etc in the 70s on occasion.

HS developed a carbon fibre version that had an integral fuel tank

 

[P1127]

Not an advanced Harrier as such, but I hadn't previously seen GR.1 XV277 with the Blue Fox radome shape for testing.

I'm not sure it was representative of Blue Fox, more a shape to show the Harrier could carry a radome at the time they were trying to sell the Sea harrier (like carrying and firing the AR Martel). It was shaped like a miniature Blue Parrot one.

 

[F.L.]

All first Gen harriers could use them, but they weren't used very often - as they weren't suitable for combat use, you had to replace them, so you needed sets of normal wing tips to follow. They were used on T birds going to Malta etc in the 70s on occasion.

HS developed a carbon fibre version that had an integral fuel tank

Do you have some more photos of Harrier fitted whith that ?

 

[Tigershark 30-82]

Not exactly sure how relevant this might be (although it does involve a mention of an advanced Harrier project of some kind):
I was re-reading a fan-scanlated version of the Area 88 Manga (specifically the Viz Comics run), I came across a fan-submitted letter (right side of page, in bold) which makes mention of a supersonic Harrier being developed/worked on by both McDonnell Douglas and British Aerospace.
Of all the places to find something so niche mentioned...

 

[Scott Kenny]

Not exactly sure how relevant this might be (although it does involve a mention of an advanced Harrier project of some kind):
I was re-reading a fan-scanlated version of the Area 88 Manga (specifically the Viz Comics run), I came across a fan-submitted letter (right side of page, in bold) which makes mention of a supersonic Harrier being developed/worked on by both McDonnell Douglas and British Aerospace.
Of all the places to find something so niche mentioned...

View attachment 727337

Area 88 is very much an airplane-nerd's manga...

 

[Tigershark 30-82]

Area 88 is very much an airplane-nerd's manga...

Fair point honestly

 

[Jason Dykstra (Wyvern)]

They were used on T birds going to Malta etc in the 70s on occasion.

Hmmm, I'll have a look around the local planespotting Facebook pages when I get a chance, perhaps I'll find some photos.

 

[Nik]

Did the name 'Rob Rowe' crop up for any of these 'Super Harrier' designs ??

He's the guy I met who deprecated 'Plenum Chamber Burning' for supersonic, but declined --OSA+NDA-- to describe his team's solution...

 

[Scott Kenny]

Pardon me, another archive binge.

Instead of wingtip rails, I always thought the British idea of mounting the AIM-9 rails on the front of the outrigger wheel housings was rather elegant.

and it pulls the ~350lbs of sidewinder and launch rail closer to your roll center...

The most obvious upgrades are to pick up systems improvements from other aircraft in the USMC fleet to simplify logistics. The AN/APG-73 of the F/A-18C/D or, if it's backwards compatible, the F/A-18E/F's AN/APG-79 would be the most obvious upgrade. For the AV-8B(NA) aircraft, I can see replacing the ARBS with more modern electro-optical systems, perhaps the "guts" of the Lightening II pod or SNIPER pod.

Definitely the kinds of upgrades or sidegrades I'd expect. Pure commonality of systems, even if you actually lost some performance otherwise, just to get poorly-supported systems out of inventory.

In 1981 BAe and McAir were working on a joint ASTOVL project combining features of both for a USN Request for Proposals, which came to an end when the USN withdrew the request. We called it the P.1218, can't recall the McAir designation.

Got anything more on this?

 

[gwiz]

Got anything more on this?

It was a fairly brief exercise, couple of months, due to USN losing interest, with half a dozen BAe Kingston people led by Chris Hansford working out at St Louis. There is a link upthread to a patent that McAir took out and I think I once found a GA drawing somewhere on this forum. Afraid I didn't walk off with any documents.

 

[Scott Kenny]

It was a fairly brief exercise, couple of months, due to USN losing interest, with half a dozen BAe Kingston people led by Chris Hansford working out at St Louis. There is a link upthread to a patent that McAir took out and I think I once found a GA drawing somewhere on this forum. Afraid I didn't walk off with any documents.

Thanks!

 

[stever_sl]

Pardon me, another archive binge.


and it pulls the ~350lbs of sidewinder and launch rail closer to your roll center...




Definitely the kinds of upgrades or sidegrades I'd expect. Pure commonality of systems, even if you actually lost some performance otherwise, just to get poorly-supported systems out of inventory.




Got anything more on this?

In 1981, I was still on the basic AV-8B program in St Louis, and the kinds of things that were being looked at by the "advanced" group were Night Attack and Radar. It wasn't until a few years later (1987-1991) that the Advanced AV-8 and V/STOL (as opposed to the parallel ASTOVL) group started looking at radically different solutions for a future Harrier replacement, as I described in an earlier post. We had some pretty amazing talent working with us, including Dr Peter Calder (OBE), who had previously led the development of the Concorde's engines and was at the time "Project Director Pegasus and V/STOL" according to his business card. It's a shame that nothing came of it due to turf wars between our group and ASTOVL.

 

[Grey Havoc]

https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/jmsdf-cvh-helicopter-carrier.23959/post-696205

 

[Boomerang503]

One thing that I've been trying to figure out with the Harrier concepts with wingtip launch rails is where the RCS thrusters would be, since they would usually be on the wingtips.

 

[TsrJoe]

that drawing notionally depicts a P.1127 prototype with wingtip undercarriage, on the Harrier, the RCS. on the wings is inset from the tips (see post #203 showing the add on 'ferry tips')

 

[stever_sl]

One thing that I've been trying to figure out with the Harrier concepts with wingtip launch rails is where the RCS thrusters would be, since they would usually be on the wingtips.

My memories about details are dim after nearly 40 years but I know that the wingtip AIM-9 configuration on the notional Harrier III Medium variant featured a swooped-out leading edge wing section that was a bit wider and flatter than the current wingtips, and would have offered more space to run "system" things. The wingtip AIM-9 station wouldn't actually interfere with the existing RCS valves anyway, they sit a bit inboard and only point up and down, so having something further outboard on the side wouldn't be a problem. I thought someone had posted at least one of our Harrier III Medium sketches somewhere, I'll have a look and see if I can find it. But this is how the valves look on AV-8B and they should have worked OK on the derivative too. Good question though!

 

[stever_sl]

My memories about details are dim after nearly 40 years but I know that the wingtip AIM-9 configuration on the notional Harrier III Medium variant featured a swooped-out leading edge wing section that was a bit wider and flatter than the current wingtips, and would have offered more space to run "system" things. The wingtip AIM-9 station wouldn't actually interfere with the existing RCS valves anyway, they sit a bit inboard and only point up and down, so having something further outboard on the side wouldn't be a problem. I thought someone had posted at least one of our Harrier III Medium sketches somewhere, I'll have a look and see if I can find it. But this is how the valves look on AV-8B and they should have worked OK on the derivative too. Good question though!

And now I remember, we actually flight tested a wingtip AIM-9 on an AV-8B in 1995, documented by several members of this group years ago.

 

[Boomerang503]

that drawing notionally depicts a P.1127 prototype with wingtip undercarriage, on the Harrier, the RCS. on the wings is inset from the tips (see post #203 showing the add on 'ferry tips')

My memories about details are dim after nearly 40 years but I know that the wingtip AIM-9 configuration on the notional Harrier III Medium variant featured a swooped-out leading edge wing section that was a bit wider and flatter than the current wingtips, and would have offered more space to run "system" things. The wingtip AIM-9 station wouldn't actually interfere with the existing RCS valves anyway, they sit a bit inboard and only point up and down, so having something further outboard on the side wouldn't be a problem. I thought someone had posted at least one of our Harrier III Medium sketches somewhere, I'll have a look and see if I can find it. But this is how the valves look on AV-8B and they should have worked OK on the derivative too. Good question though! View attachment 735268

Thank you for your responses. Now I have a related question. Post #182 brought up big wing concepts with folding wings. Along with the Royal Navy variant of the Hawker P.1154, I have to wonder where the RCS thrusters would be in those concepts. Would they be in the inner wing before the fold?

 

[TsrJoe]

P.1154

 

[Boomerang503]

P.1154

Now I see where the thrusters are. Thanks again.

 

[stever_sl]

LOL - I went to Boeing and asked whether I could share information about Harrier III and Harrier 21 with this group and others, specifically with regard to a paper I'd written just before I retired about the whole thing for their internal Company technical journal. I got a hilarious (to me) reply. First, I'm not allowed to read the paper I wrote, since I'm retired and the journal site can only be reached by active employees. But even if that weren't the case, someone decided to mark the paper itself "ITAR" meaning that its distribution is limited to US citizens under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, despite the fact that 2/3 of the team that created the designs consisted of non-US people at British Aerospace and Rolls Royce. So they too are not allowed to read about what we jointly did. And remember, this wasn't some high-tech cutting-edge 6th-gen project. It's 30+ years old, a purely paper effort that resulted in no hardware and that deliberately avoided using advanced technologies because the Marines wouldn't have been able to afford them anyway, or at least that was what we believed in the glorious pre-JAST/JSF days. So unless a successful challenge can be made to remove that restrictive marking, the Harrier III/21 story may never be told outside of today's Boeing archives.

 

[SteveO]

stever_sl

Did the repackaged Rolls Royce Pegasus for the Harrier 21 look similar to this Split Flow In Hover study? (From a Lockheed paper, now attached! Can’t remember who originally posted it).

 

[Nik]

No deprecated 'Plenum Chamber Burning', either ??
I'm impressed.

 

[FighterJock]

Nice find SteveO, I would like to know if there is any info available out on the internet regarding the Harrier 21? As I have never seen or read anything about it before.

 

[SteveO]

Michael Pryce has a new book coming out which I’m hoping is going to be Advanced Harrier Projects related

Can't say more than this yet, but as the company put the page up already keep an eye on it for updates.

Michael Pryce

www.penguin.co.uk

Years of archives, interviews and navel-gazing and then more for writing.

Some very new project stuff that even I did not believe at first, and a whole new twist on a well-known story.

View attachment 731881

 

[SteveO]

Barrington Bond posted this pic of the HS1181 which gives you an idea of what a Harrier 21 with a straight through engine might look similar to. I imagine the Rolls Royce Pegasus development could be placed further back from the centre of gravity if the cold nozzles were on the end of throw forward ducts similar to the split flow in hover concept?

Section 4 STOL Developments



Fig 4.1 STOL Harrier



A proposal to equip the P.1127 with a large wing fitted with high lift devices to enable it to carry an increased weapon load out of relatively short fields. It would of course, reduce its true VTO capacity owing to the increase in basic weight. Jul 65



Fig 4.2 STOL High Speed Development

This layout uses the same wing as the previous development but has a stretched and area-ruled fuselage to give a higher speed potential without resorting to P.C.B. In this condition the estimated maximum level speed at 36,000ft would be M=1.1



Fig 4.3 STOL Strike Fighter

A similar layout to the previous figure but shows an earlier scheme using a wing having blown flaps and a drooping leading edge.



Fig 4.4 Supersonic V/STOL Aircraft

This arrangement is orientated towards a carrier based aircraft and so has an even larger wing and an engine with P.C.B.



Fig 4.5 H.S 1181 STOL Strike Aircraft

Swivelling front nozzles only with P..B and straight through hot flow. Reheat could be added to improve both supersonic and take-off performance.

 

[FighterJock]

Thanks SteveO, the Michael Price book sounds interesting.

 

[BlackBat242]

stever_sl

Did the repackaged Rolls Royce Pegasus for the Harrier 21 look similar to this Split Flow In Hover study? (From a Lockheed paper, now attached! Can’t remember who originally posted it).

With the main landing gear wheels inches from where the rear (hot) nozzle airflow would hit the ground in vertical mode (either take-off or landing) they'd better have planned for metal-only tyres!

 

[SteveO]

A few interesting designs from DEFE 71/1139 Naval Staff Target 6464: Sea Harrier replacement:

• Shar 3A - Based on Sea Harrier FA.2 with larger wing (9.2 m)
• Shar 3B - Based on Sea Harrier FA.2 with even larger folding wing (11.9 m)
• P.1227 -Based on Harrier GR.5 with larger folding wing (11.9 m)

All were to feature the Blue Vixen radar from the Sea Harrier FA.2, and the Zeus ECM system from the Harrier GR.5. They were to be fitted with either the Pegasus 19 or RB.532 engine offering a 15% or 30% increase in thrust respectively over the Pegasus Mk.104/5 used in the Sea Harrier FA.2 / Harrier GR.5.

… Harrier 21

Section 5 Supersonic VTOL Aircraft with Lift/Cruise engines. HS1179D

Hmmm… I’m now obsessed with what the Harrier 21 looks like!

stever_sl, are you allowed to say if we are warm or cold with suggestions

I’m thinking of the front and wing of the P1227-3 combined with a back end, undercarriage and intakes similar to the HS 1179D?

I remember seeing a study about neatly stowed away V/STOL nozzles but can’t recall what they were called. Something like - AVEN, HIDEN maybe?

 

[SteveO]

Search before you post

Hi,


http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19960020523_1996043923.pdf

NASA HIDEN nozzle, pic but link doesn’t work

Internal performance of Highly Integrated Deployable Exhaust Nozzles - NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

The internal performance characteristics of Highly Integrated Deployable Exhaust Nozzles (HIDEN) applicable to advanced short take-off and vertical landing aircraft have been investigated. Four nozzle concepts, designed for fan and core flow installations, were tested with varying contraction...

ntrs.nasa.gov

Internal performance of Highly Integrated Deployable Exhaust Nozzles

Explains it but it’s not available. Rolls Royce / NASA study.

 

[hesham]

Search before you post
NASA HIDEN nozzle, pic but link doesn’t work

Dear StevoO,

They told me here,how to get back this pdf report,but I forget ?,although here it's
with larger view.

 

[SteveO]

Thanks Hesham, much appreciated! 280 pages and very engineery but pics from page 179/180

Actually shows a tandem fan arrangement rather than a Pegasus layout but the rotate to deploy HIDEN nozzle gives you an idea how a straight through Pegasus might work.

 

[stever_sl]

Hmmm… I’m now obsessed with what the Harrier 21 looks like!

stever_sl, are you allowed to say if we are warm or cold with suggestions

I’m thinking of the front and wing of the P1227-3 combined with a back end, undercarriage and intakes similar to the HS 1179D?

I remember seeing a study about neatly stowed away V/STOL nozzles but can’t recall what they were called. Something like - AVEN, HIDEN maybe?

HIDEN rings a bell. Rolls Royce did the engine work on Harrier 21 and I've seen at least one of the 2 variants included in their product history lists. RB-578 was the version using the Pegasus core for our hoped-for prototype that never happened, and RB-571 was the same layout but with the more powerful Eurofighter engine core. I can't say much about the aircraft itself because of that whole ITAR thing but since 2/3 of the work was done by Brits, you might touch base with RR or BAE and see if they've retained anything in their files that they could share. If you're able to track down RB-578 or -571 you'll see a family resemblance with what MDC's ASTOVL Model 4629 had, with some significant differences of course. NASA Contractor Report 195358 "STOVL Control Integration Program" has no restrictive distribution markings and so if you find RB-578/571 material elsewhere you'll be able to see pretty clearly what MDC/BAe/RR thinking was in the early 1990s. Here's one illustration of Model 4629 from the NASA report:

 

[stever_sl]

Hmmm… I’m now obsessed with what the Harrier 21 looks like!

stever_sl, are you allowed to say if we are warm or cold with suggestions

I’m thinking of the front and wing of the P1227-3 combined with a back end, undercarriage and intakes similar to the HS 1179D?

I remember seeing a study about neatly stowed away V/STOL nozzles but can’t recall what they were called. Something like - AVEN, HIDEN maybe?

P.S. - lukewarm, I'm afraid. Hint: At the time the USMC was implementing a long-term plan whose acronym I've forgotten, but it involved reducing the number of different types and models of their aircraft in order to streamline logistics and cut maintenance and training costs. With that in mind, they spoke repeatedly of needing a "Hovering Hornet" as a catchphrase. Harrier 21 wasn't precisely that, but...

 

[SteveO]

Thanks for the reply stever_sl
Hovering Hornet? Could it be that elmayerle posted a picture of Harrier 21 at the start of this thread!

I was going through some old discs and I found some clip art obtained back when I was working for Boeing-Rocketdyne. I thought these items of interest:

 

[SteveO]

More Harrier 21 speculating - like or laugh

 

[zebedee]

Aircraft Photo of XV277 | Hawker Siddeley P-1127 Harrier | UK - Navy | AirHistory.net #145404

Aircraft photo of XV277 - Hawker Siddeley P-1127 Harrier - UK - Navy, taken by Ian Howat at East Fortune in Scotland, United Kingdom on 29 August 2002 at the National Museum of Flight. The Royal Navy markings were picked up in the days when it was a ground instructional airframe. It was operated...

www.airhistory.net

Looking at the nose of XV277 at East Fortune I think thats just a standard GR3 nose with the lens painted over... far slimmer than the Blue Fox test radome fitted earlier in it career...

Zeb