The curious operation to disassembly the wing of a Harrier II fighter of the Spanish Navy

@DefAviation ES 11·03·2023 · 6:02 0

The EAV-8B Harrier II fighters have been in service for many years in the Spanish Navy and have starred in many photos and videos.

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However, there are very curious images that are common for those of us who do not have access to the hangars of the 9th Squadron in Rota and the aircraft carrier "Juan Carlos I". An example of this is a video published yesterday by the Spanish Defense Staff (EMAD) showing the operation to dismantle the wing of a Spanish Harrier II, within the framework of maintenance tasks in the hangar of aircraft from the aforementioned ship during the NATO Neptune Strike exercise:

As we can see in the following screenshots, during these tasks the fighter only had its rear landing gear deployed.

The front landing gear was folded to be able to tilt the nose of the plane down and thus be able to pass the wing over the cockpit. Removing the wing from the tail would be more difficult due to the height of the drift and the limited height of the hangar.

As we see here, during this operation the plane had to be supported on several supports, not only to have the front landing gear folded, but also so that the plane would not fall to one side.

The Harrier II has four landing gears: the main one (located under the center of the fuselage and formed by two large wheels with a single support), the front one (with a single wheel and located in tandem) and two legs with wheels located in the middle of the wing, which are deployed so that the plane maintains balance. In this video we can see the legs of the wings folded.