{"id":56643,"date":"2024-07-28T20:34:50","date_gmt":"2024-07-28T18:34:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/?p=56643"},"modified":"2025-07-28T00:07:47","modified_gmt":"2025-07-27T22:07:47","slug":"a-hovering-flight-comparison-between-a-spanish-harrier-ii-plus-and-a-british-f-35b","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2024\/07\/28\/a-hovering-flight-comparison-between-a-spanish-harrier-ii-plus-and-a-british-f-35b\/","title":{"rendered":"A hovering flight comparison between a Spanish Harrier II Plus and a British F-35B"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Royal International Air Tattoo has left us without the beautiful image of a joint flight of a Harrier II and an F-35B.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><rel><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2024\/07\/23\/a-spanish-harrier-ii-wins-a-rafcte-trophy-in-england-and-flies-with-a-small-giraffe\/\">A Spanish Harrier II wins a RAFCTE trophy in England and flies with a small giraffe<\/a><\/rel><br \/>\n<rel><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2024\/07\/20\/the-passion-for-the-spanish-harrier-ii-at-the-great-british-airshow-riat-2024\/\">The passion for the Spanish Harrier II at the great British airshow RIAT 2024<\/a><\/rel><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2023\/07\/16\/the-admired-flight-of-a-spanish-harrier-ii-with-an-f-35b-its-expected-replacement\/\">Last year's edition saw the joint flight<\/a>, featuring an EAV-8B+ Harrier II Plus from the 9th Squadron of the Spanish Navy and an F-35B from the 207 Squadron of the British Royal Air Force (RAF). As you may recall, BAE Systems Air published these images of the display:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53050067411_e5275e6a98_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; border:0px;\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53050261099_89caf4636c_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; border:0px;\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53050261079_10f322f213_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; border:0px;\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Although they did not fly together, <strong>both aircraft were shown performing static flight displays at this year's RIAT<\/strong>. This afternoon, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@Epicaviation47\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Epicaviation47<\/a> posted a video comparing them, asking the million-dollar question in the title: <strong>\"Who is better?\"<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Who is better? AV-8B Harrier II VS F-35B Lightning II Riat 2024 Highlights\" width=\"665\" height=\"374\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/b8oWYvuYPS0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>At the time of writing, <strong>all three reader comments are in support of the Harrier<\/strong>. An English-speaking reader has the following thoughts on both aircraft:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\"<strong>British Sea Harriers shot down 23 Argentinian Aircraft in The Falklands \/ Malvinas without loss<\/strong> (air to air kills). F35 has got a hell of a way to go to beat that!\"<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53800645260_a114ca8a4f_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; border:0px;\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>I am Spanish and a big fan of the Spanish Harriers<\/strong>, so I am not objective on this subject. However, that does not prevent me from acknowledging some obvious facts about both aircraft. First of all, <strong>the Harrier II is an older, less powerful and less advanced aircraft than the F-35B<\/strong>. Considering the stealth characteristics of the F-35B alone, the Harrier II would probably not stand a chance in an air-to-air fight against the fifth-generation fighter.<\/p>\n<p><strong>However, there are a few details I don't like about the F-35B's powerplant.<\/strong> The engine on the Harrier and Harrier II is a Rolls-Royce Pegasus turbofan with vectored thrust. It has four steerable nozzles, two cold air nozzles at the front and two larger hot air nozzles at the rear.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53197971223_27d6072b2b_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; border:0px;\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>The F-35B needs two engines to hover:<\/strong> the main engine, which has a steerable nozzle, and a smaller, additional engine in the center of the aircraft. <strong>The second engine is dead weight for the rest of the flight<\/strong>, since it contributes nothing to the aircraft and takes up valuable real estate (which reduces the capacity of the weapons bay and forced the exclusion of an integrated cannon).<\/p>\n<p>That aside, <strong>the F-35B is a supersonic aircraft, while the Harrier II is subsonic<\/strong> (it can reach a maximum speed of 1,080 km\/h). However, in an aerial combat this is not so important (fighter aircraft rarely reach supersonic speeds in their missions, in order to save fuel). <strong>The additional engine and more advanced technology of the F-35B result in a larger logistical footprint and lower availability than the Harrier II<\/strong>, to a worrying extent.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/51757281256_04f8ef4524_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; border:0px;\" \/><\/p>\n<p>To give you an idea, according to the US Navy, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.navair.navy.mil\/product\/AV-8B-Harrier\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Marine Harrier IIs had over 90% availability during the Gulf War<\/a> (1991). The 60 USMC Harrier IIs that participated in that operation flew 3,380 sorties for a total of 4,083 flight hours. <strong>The Harrier II gave an excellent result.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>However, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.airandspaceforces.com\/f-35-reliability-maintainability-availability-2023\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">US F-35s are currently at or above 51% availability,<\/a> <strong>far short of their target of 65%<\/strong> and well below the 90% that Harrier IIs surpassed in the Gulf War. In 2023, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbo.gov\/publication\/58942\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a US Congressional report noted<\/a> that <strong>USMC F-35Bs have lower availability rates than Harrier IIs,<\/strong> despite the latter being older aircraft. Furthermore, F-35B availability rates are declining rapidly. The question that comes to mind is: <strong>Has anyone considered making a Harrier III so that current Harrier II operators don't have to rely on the much more expensive and defective F-35Bs?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>---<\/p>\n<p><small>Photos: <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BAESystemsAir\/status\/1680465094486925313\">BAE Systems Air<\/a> \/ U.S. Marine Corps \/ U.S. Navy.<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Royal International Air Tattoo has left us without the beautiful image of a joint flight of a Harrier II and an F-35B.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[19536,11546],"tags":[2245,7072,1112,1111,3366,10669,9071,673],"class_list":["post-56643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-we-said-yesterday","category-military-aviation","tag-9-escuadrilla","tag-lockheed-martin-f-35-lightning-ii","tag-mcdonnell-douglas-av-8b-harrier-ii","tag-mcdonnell-douglas-eav-8b-harrier-ii","tag-royal-air-force-raf","tag-spanish-navy","tag-the-royal-international-air-tattoo","tag-us-marine-corps"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-12 07:10:33","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56643\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}