(Image: via fourfax.co.uk; grounded Harrier jets at RAF Cottesmore in June 2011)
In March 2011, amid increasingly austere budget cuts, the Royal Air Force grounded the last of its 143 British Aerospace Harrier II strike jets. The last Fleet Air Arm planes within Joint Force Harrier had gone by the previous year, and the end of an era came not just (albeit temporarily) for the Royal Navy’s fixed-wing carrier capability, but for one of the most innovative aircraft of the Cold War era.
The original Hawker Siddeley Harrier, along with its P.1127 prototype and Kestrel FGA.1 development aircraft, was the world’s first operational vertical/short takeoff and landing (V/STOL) fighter jet. The innovative design was later developed through an Anglo-American into a larger, more capable version of the aircraft that cemented the famous Harrier Jump Jet family’s place in aeronautical history.
But as we’ve reported previously on Urban Ghosts, Britain’s long-serving Harrier fleet was grounded in 2011 amid the harsh economic climate. Initially retired to their original hangars at RAF Cottesmore in Rutland, England, some 72 Harriers had been sold to the US Marine Corps before the end of the year, at the bargain price of just £116 million ($180 million).
At the time the above photograph was taken, their fate was still uncertain. Fast forward several years, and their empty shells lie in the searing heat of the Arizona desert Boneyard (below) or at MCAS Cherry Point in North Carolina. Despite a £500 million contract to upgrade the Harriers from GR7 to GR9 standard, the airframes are now used as a source of spare parts and will never fly again.
Nearest the camera (above) is twin-seat Harrier T12 ZH664, which first flew in 1995 and was withdrawn from service in 2010. Immediately behind it is GR9 ZD352, which flew for the first time in 1988. Meanwhile, the aircraft at right with the specially painted tail fin is the 1991 Harrier GR9 ZG858. All three aircraft now lie at Davis-Monthan AFB near Tucson. Among the withdrawn GR9s are a handful of Harrier GR7s that had not yet gone through the upgrade programme when the fleet was finally grounded.
(Image: cactusbillaz; British Harrier GR9 ‘jump jets’ in storage at AMARG)
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