A new book in my library.

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Arrived yesterday....

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Paul Tremelling's book Harrier

In it there is a description of what must have been the Sea Harriers last Red Flag exercise. Two Sea Harriers evaded the fighter cover for the attacking force (eight F15's), got amongst the attacking bombers splashing two F16's and two F18's, followed by splashing two EA6-B electronic warfare aircraft. They could see that retribution was on the way but splashed two more F16's before all hell broke loose.

In the debrief the USN person with the CF18's came to them to congratulate them and asked in disbelief for confirmation that the British were taking them out of service.

It is also clear in the book that he highly rated the radar on the Sea Harrier
 
At Tinker AFB in the late 70's we had the 507th, flying F-105's. They went to Red Flag and we told that the plan was for them to be intercepted by F-15's when they went in to the target at low altitude. In response the 507th went in high and hit the target. They were told they had not followed the plan, and responded, "Would the enemy?" They next were told they were going in high. They went in low, and gave them the same answer when they were told they had not followed the plan.
 
Paul Tremelling's book Harrier

In it there is a description of what must have been the Sea Harriers last Red Flag exercise. Two Sea Harriers evaded the fighter cover for the attacking force (eight F15's), got amongst the attacking bombers splashing two F16's and two F18's, followed by splashing two EA6-B electronic warfare aircraft. They could see that retribution was on the way but splashed two more F16's before all hell broke loose.

In the debrief the USN person with the CF18's came to them to congratulate them and asked in disbelief for confirmation that the British were taking them out of service.

It is also clear in the book that he highly rated the radar on the Sea Harrier
Those would be the much improved Sea Harrier FA.2 which reached front line service in Oct 1994. It had the Blue Vixen radar with look down / shoot down and track while scan capabilities. Far more advanced than the Blue Fox radar in the FRS.1 that saw action in the Falklands in 1982. FA.2 also got the AMRAAM missile even before the Tornado F.3.

I've seen a story, don't know if it's true or not, that Blue Vixen was able to detect targets over the former Yugoslavia that even AWACS couldn't see!

They were withdrawn from service in March 2006 as a defence economy to be replaced by the Harrier GR7/7A/9/9A in the FAA until 2010.
 
During the Falklands conflict, RAF Harrier GR's were sent to augment the Sea Harriers, and some RAF Harrier GR pilots were sent to fly Sea Harriers. One such RAF pilot in a Sea Harrier closed in on a couple of attacking A-4's and prepared to shoot them down. Then he discovered they had located the Sidewinder arming switch in a different location than in the GR. Needless to say, he did not have time to read the manual at that point, but found that at least the cannon arming switch was the same as the GR and downed one of the A-4's by gunfire.

Reminds me of a time a friend of mine was doing a long flight in a Cessna 172, and knew he would be landing after dark. What he did not count on was that he could not find the switch for the interior lights, not having flown that particular airplane at night previously. He feared he would have to land short of his destination but finally looked not at the panel but up, where he found a red light just behind his head that shone down on the instruments.
 

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