Joint Force Harrier

by Adrian Orchard

26. The squadron’s engineers worked round the clock to keep the Harriers flying throughout the det.

  27. The bomb dump.

  28. The route to and from the bomb dump was well worn. Over the course of a four-month det we dropped over 100,000 lbs of ordnance.

  29. ‘Bombheads’ – naval armourers – load a 540 lb dumb bomb on to the outboard pylon of a Harrier in the hangar at Kandahar.

  30. Pre-flight briefing.

  31. The stencils sprayed on to the side of the jet give a pretty clear indication of the intensity of the operations flown by the squadron in Afghanistan. The circles to the left represent CRV-7 rockets fired. Bombs dropped are on the right.

  32. The safety tags are removed from a 1000 lb Paveway II laser-guided bomb before take-off.

  33. Yours truly, just before climbing in to the cockpit. Wearing a g-suit and survival gear, I’m standing next to one of the 800 NAS det Harriers. To my left is a live 540 lb high-explosive bomb.

  34. With the jet chained to the ground, the squadron engineers run a high-power engine test. The air fills with oily black smoke whenever the Rolls-Royce Pegasus is fired up.

  35. The office – the instrument panel of the Harrier GRy. The two flat-screen displays are evident. Top centre are the radios. Top right, the engine instruments. And below the radios the attitude indicator – or artificial horizon – can be seen.

  36. The view from the pilot’s seat, which clearly shows the position of the Head-up Display (HUD).

  37. The ridges surrounding KAF seen through the HUD with a C-130 and Mi-24 just visible in the foreground.

  38. Taxiing out.

  39. Filling up. A Harrier takes on fuel from an RAF TriStar tanker. Air-to-air refuelling dramatically increased the time the squadron could spend over the operating area.

  40. Self-portrait.

  41. We always hunted in pairs. In reality, we’d fly in a loose battle formation separated by thousands of feet. This picture was actually taken as the jets streaked past Illustrious as she steamed in the Indian Ocean.

  42. Loaded for bear. A GR7, armed with CRV-7 rockets and bombs, en route to Helmand, eady to support troops on the ground. The yellow bands around the bombs indicate that they’re live.

  43. KAF from the air. A picture taken from about 20,000 feet, using the GR7’s centreline recce pod. The base’s uninviting location is pretty evident. As is the infamous ‘poo pond’, the circle in the bottom right corner of the airfield with the four distinct segments, representing different stages of the treatment process.

  44. RAF Regiment patrols that pushed the Taliban back from the perimeter led to a significant decrease in the number of rocket attacks on KAF.

  45. A 3 Commando Brigade mortar team in action. Accurate mortar fire from the RAF Regiment counter-battery teams helped tackle the threat of rocket attacks at source.

  46. Here I am getting it all out of my system with a compact ‘mini-me’ machine gun on the KAF ranges.

  47. Downtime. A few members of the squadron relax over coffee at Tim Hortons, another of the takeaway outlets flown in by the USAF. I’m the one in the middle with my hand in the doughnut bag.

  48. Celebrating 2,500 flying hours with an alcohol-free ‘near beer’ during the otherwise dry det in Afghanistan.

  49. The view from the cockpit at 30,000 feet. Dominating the picture is the refuelling probe on the engine intake.

  50. The view from above. The difficulties of being sure about the situation on the ground from the air are evident. Through the cockpit glass as the Harrier banks to the left, a column of vehicles can be seen kicking up dust. But who they are and what they’re doing, without further information, is anyone’s guess.

  51. This picture graphically demonstrates how hard it is to identify a target from the air based on directions from the ground. If we’re told the enemy are holed up in the compound to the west of the road we have to ask which one. And hold our fire until we’re sure we’ve found them.

  52. There are groups of people on either side of the bridge. Is it a firefight or a Sunday market? Further evidence of how hard it was to be sure of the situation on the ground.

  53. Cyborg – the cumbersome sets of Night Vision Goggles gave their wearer an outlandish appearance. But without them, flying close air support at night was significantly more challenging.

  54. The view through the NVGs. Interpreting what you were seeing took some getting used to.

  55. Santa’s got a brand new sleigh. The Taliban didn’t rest for Christmas, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t try to enjoy a little festive spirit.

  56. When the scramble bell rings, the alert crews drop whatever they’re doing and run to the jets.

  57. On alert. A Harrier, armed, pre-flighted and ready to go, sits on the hangar, waiting for the scramble bell to ring. The pilot’s Mae West lifejacket and helmet hang in the foreground.

  58. Scramble. A GR7 gets airborne on another GCAS mission.

  59. Wingman. A great portrait of one of the Harriers. The stencils on the side of the cockpit show it’s been well-used.

  60. Flares fired from the Harrier’s belly were our best defence against the threat from heat-seeking surface-to-air missiles.

  61. Carrying a fairly standard load-out of bombs, CRV-7 rockets, drop tanks, and recce and targeting pods under the fuselage, a GR7 breaks right, high over the mountains.

  62. A job well done. I spoke to the squadron on our last day in Afghanistan to acknowledge the success of the det. During our four months at KAF, we were forced to fly our Harriers at a tempo not previously seen in Afghanistan. I was proud of every single one of my people.

  63. Something to remember us by.

  Epilogue

  The sun glinted off the glossy grey wings as I pulled the Sea Fury into a loop over the flat Somerset countryside. I looked ahead through the blur of the propeller as I rehearsed my display routine for the forthcoming summer air display season. My thoughts returned to the Harrier in Afghanistan, then back to the beautiful old machine I was now wheeling around the sky. For all their differences, there were also some striking similarities.

  Designed in the 1940s, the magnificent Hawker Sea Fury FB11 represented the pinnacle of piston-engined fighter design. And it was one of the most successful and popular aircraft ever operated by the post-war Fleet Air Arm. It was combat-proven too. And during the Korean War, on one of the few occasions when a piston-engined fighter got the better of a faster and more modern jet, an 802 NAS Sea Fury shot down a MiG-15. But throughout that conflict the Fleet Air Arm flew the Sea Fury not as a fighter, but as a ground-attack aircraft in support of British and UN troops on the ground.

  So, although the Sea Fury and the Harrier GR7 were separated by half a century of aeronautical development, they carried out precisely the same role, for the same air arm, in a distant and unexpected Asian war. And both, bizarrely, had been designed by the same man – Sir Sydney Camm of Hawker Siddeley. Camm died in 1966, but the original Hawker P1127 Kestrel, the forerunner of the Harrier, was designed by him. The GR7 we’d flown in Afghanistan was recognizably the same basic aircraft.

  Sir Sydney would have been staggered to discover where his design for the Kestrel would eventually lead – the Harrier GR7 and GR9 were a quantum leap into the future – but I think he would have been proud that the basic rightness of that first revolutionary little vertical take-off design had survived and thrived into the twenty-first century.

  History, somebody once said, is the past coming in through a new door, and I knew exactly what that meant. I was in the fortunate position of being able to fly not only the Royal Navy’s current Close Air Support aircraft in combat, but also, with the Royal Navy’s Historic Flight, one of the last airworthy survivors of an earlier era, an outstanding aircraft, that had performed exactly the same role.

  The first Naval Strike Wing detachment to Afghanistan had been a success. We had maintained the required level of serviceability; we had launched on time for all our sorties, including getting the GCAS scr
amble aircraft off the ground in well under the specified minimum time; and we had hit our targets accurately. We had undeniably saved the lives of a great many coalition troops of several nations. During our four months in theatre we had suffered neither casualties nor mechanical failures, and had been able to hand over the aircraft to 1 (F) Squadron RAF without excuse or caveat.

  It had been a highly successful operation. And the detachment had, I believed, fully validated both 800 Naval Air Squadron in the Close Air Support role and the Joint Force Harrier concept itself.

  The rich, nostalgic thunder of the Sea Fury’s engine brought me back to the task in hand. I was pushed back and down into my seat as I pulled the big old fighter out of the loop and brought her roaring down the centreline of Yeovilton’s main runway. The wonderful noise of the Bristol Centaurus eighteen-cylinder radial engine echoed off the buildings and hangars as I beat past them. The last time I’d flown so low, so fast and so purposefully, I was strapped to the ejection seat of a Harrier GR7 streaking across Taliban positions in the remote battlefields of Afghanistan. Despite a sharp reduction in our front-line strength since the heyday of the Sea Fury, the Fleet Air Arm was still in the business of flying fixed-wing combat aircraft. Still doing the job.

  I pulled back on the stick and pointed the blunt nose of the old warbird skyward, soaring high over the familiar tower of Ilchester church to the west of the airfield. It was good to be back home. And good to be back in the air.

  Glossary

  A-10 Warthog American Close Air Support aircraft

  AMRAAM (AIM-120) Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile

  ANA Afghan National Army

  ANP Afghan National Police

  Antonov An-24 Twin-turbo prop Russian transport aircraft

  AOC Air Officer Commanding

  ATC Air traffic control

  ATCO Air traffic controller

  ATIS Air Traffic Information Service

  ATO Air Tasking Order

  B-1 Lancer American four-engined heavy bomber

  BDA Battle Damage Assessment

  Bingo A pre-briefed amount of fuel that allows for a safe return to base

  Blue Vixen The Sea Harrier FA2’s radar

  BM-12 Russian-made unguided rockets

  Boeing AH-64 Apache Helicopter gunship operated in Afghanistan by the Americans, British and Dutch

  KC-135 American aerial refuelling tanker

  Brimstone British air-launched anti-armour missile

  Browning 9mm British handgun

  C-130 Hercules Ubiquitous American-built four-turboprop transport aircraft used by air forces throughout the world including the RAF

  C-17 Globemaster III Large American four-jet transport aircraft also operated by the RAF

  C2 Command and Control

  Cab Fleet Air Arm slang for aircraft

  CAG Commander Air Group

  Camp Bastion Largest British base in Afghanistan

  CAOC Combined Air Operations Centre

  Casevac Casualty evacuation

  CFIT Controlled flight into terrain

  CH-47 Chinook American-built twin-rotor transport helicopter also operated by the RAF

  Chock-head Royal Navy slang for an aircraft handler

  CIA Central Intelligence Agency

  Clear hot; in hot Cleared to drop live weapons

  Click One kilometre

  CO Commanding Officer

  Crab Royal Navy slang for the RAF

  CRV-7 Canadian designed air-launched unguided missile

  CVF Future British Aircraft Carrier

  CVS British Anti-submarine Carrier

  DEA Drug Enforcement Administration

  det detachment

  DIFAC Dining facility

  ECM Electronic Counter-measures

  F-15 Eagle American twin-engined air-superiority and strike aircraft

  F-16 Fighting Falcon Single-engined American-built multi-role fighter

  F-35 Lightning II Single-engined American-designed strike fighter. Currently under development and expected to go into service with both the RAF and Royal Navy

  FAC Forward air controller

  FAA Fleet Air Arm

  Fast air Fixed-wing close-air support

  FDO Flight Deck Officer

  FLIR Forward Looking Infra-red

  Flyco Flying control – aboard an aircraft carrier

  FOB Forward Operating Base

  FOD Foreign object damage

  GBU Guided Bomb Unit

  GCAS Ground Close Air Support

  GCAS 120 Ground Close Air Support on two hours notice

  ‘g’ Unit of acceleration. One ‘g’ equals the force of gravity

  GLO Ground Liaison Officer

  Goofer Navy slang for spectator watching air operation aboard an aircraft carrier

  GPS Global Positioning System

  Green Death Royal Marines

  Harrier Anglo-American vertical/short take-off and landing ground attack aircraft, includes GR7, GR9 and AV-8B (flown by the US Marine Corps in Afghanistan)

  HIG Hezb-es-Islami Gulbuddin

  HUD Cockpit head-up display

  Huey Bell UH-1 utility helicopter

  Humvee High Mobility Multi-purpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMVE) – essentially a modern day jeep used by US forces

  ICOM Intercept Communications

  IED Improvised Explosive Device

  IFF Identification Friend or Foe

  Ilyushin Il-76 Russian-built four-engined jet transport aircraft

  IR Infra-red

  ISAF International Security Assistance Force

  ISI Inter-Services Intelligence. The Pakistani security service

  JDAM Joint-Attack Direct Munition. A guidance kit that converts dumb bombs into smart ones guided by inertial navigation and GPS.

  JFH Joint Force Harrier

  Joint Strike Fighter F-35 Lightning II. Currently under development for air forces around the world

  JTAC Joint Terminal Air Controller

  KIA Killed in Action

  LAV Light Armoured Vehicle

  Maverick (AGM-65) Air-launched anti-armour guided missile

  MAW Missile approach warning system

  Medevac Medical evacuation

  Mi-8 Hip Russian-made transport helicopter

  Mil Mi-24 Halo Russian-made transport helicopter. The world’s biggest

  Mirage 2000 French single-engined, delta-winged strike fighter

  Mirage F1 French single-engined multi-role fighter

  MPRS Multi-Point Refuelling System

  MRE Meals Ready to Eat

  Mud-mover Military slang for ground-attack pilots

  NAS Naval Air Squadron

  NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organisation

  Nimrod Four-engined British anti-submarine and surveillance

  NVGs Night vision goggles

  OC Officer Commanding

  OP Observation Post

  Ops Operations

  PGM Precision Guided Munition

  Pickle button Weapons release button

  MAW Missile approach warning

  PNB Power nozzle braking

  QFI Qualified Flying Instructor

  QRF Quick Reaction Force

  Radalt Radar altimeter

  Rafale Twin-engined French land and carrier-based multi-role fighter aircraft

  RIP Relief in Place

  RM Royal Marine

  RPG Rocket-propelled grenade

  RTB Return to Base

  RWR Radar warning receiver

  SA-7 Grail Russian-made hand-held surface-to-air missile

  SA-14 Gremlin Russian-made hand-held surface-to-air missile

  SAM Surface-to-air missile

  SAS Special Air Service

  SBS Special Boat Service

  Sea Harrier British vertical/short take-off and landing carrierborne multi-role fighter aircraft

  Shar Fleet Air Arm slang for the Sea Harrier

  Sidewinder (AIM-9) Heatseeking short-range air-to-air missile

  SI
TREP Situation report

  SMS Stores Management System

  Squinto Squadron Intelligence Officer

  Stinger American-made handheld surface-to-air missile

  Super Étendard French single-engined carrierborne strike aircraft

  TACAN Tactical Air Navigation. Radio-based system provides range and bearing

  TACP Tactical Air Control Party

  Targeting pod Thermal Imaging and Laser Designation (TIALD) system carried on British Harrier GR7s

  TIC Troops in Contact

  Tornado F3 Fighter version of the twin-engined swing-wing Tornado strike aircraft

  TriStar Three-engined wide-bodied jet transport and aerial tanker used by the RAF

  Typhoon Twin-engined multi-role fighter

  UAV Unmanned aerial vehicle

  USAF United States Air Force

  VBIED Vehicle-borne Improvised Explosive Device – or car bomb

  VFR Visual Flight Rules

  VHF Very High Frequency radio

  VC10 Four-engined British aerial-tanker and transport aircraft operated by the RAF

  VMC Visual meteorogical conditions

  Winchester Out of ammunition

  WRB Weapon-release button. Also know in the Fleet Air Arm as the pickle button

  Harrier GR.7

  Starboard all-moving tailplane

  Tailplane composite construction

  Tail missile warning radar

  Missile Approach Warning radar equipment module

  Tail pitch control air value

  Yaw control air values

  Tail ‘bullet’ fairing

  Reaction control system air ducting

  Rudder trim actuator

  Rudder trim tab

  Rudder composite construction

  Rudder

  Antenna

  Fin-tip aerial fairing