Reply #5: And only provides 12 minutes of flight time

[happyslug]

With the ability to hover lasting no more than 90 Seconds at a time AND when used as a VTOL (Vertical Takeoff and landing) plane, its combat time is about 12 minutes and than only armed for air to air combat (The 12 minute comment is from an article I read years ago, but I can not find on line).

Now the Harrier is generally used as a Conventional takeoff plane or as a jump jet, both of which permits increase range AND increase missiles and bombs to be carried.

Furthermore the Harrier engine rotates, i.e goes from pointing straight down to pointing to the rear, if either engines fails to rotate the pilot must eject (Through if both do work together the plane may be able to be landed somehow).

Thus while the Harrier is a difficult plane to fly, the chief reason is the short time period to train for VTOL given the limited fly time in that mode. This is complicated by the complex system of pivoting the engines, which means if there is more things to go wrong mechanically than in a conventional Jet.

Thus the problem of the Harrier is based on its design, hard to learn to fly AND a huge increase in the chance of something going wrong.

More on the Harrier:
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/av-8.htm
http://www.history.navy.mil/planes/av-8b.pdf
http://web.triton.net/c/cyro/pages/Harrier.html