>337 AV-8 Harrier IIs were ever built
>110 of them were destroyed in non-combat accidents
Holy frick, is this the worst track record of literally any vehicle ever?
>337 AV-8 Harrier IIs were ever built
>110 of them were destroyed in non-combat accidents
Holy frick, is this the worst track record of literally any vehicle ever?
They've been around a while, every time you fly a plane there's a chance of an accident. That chance doesn't disappear because they're not being made any more, the produced count stays the same and the accident count only goes up.
That said, they're hard to fly and probably had an increased accident rate compared to most aircraft.
yes, it's part of why the F-35B program was so important, the Marines needed a real replacement for the Harrier on the assault ships
there is a super long article from the 90s that lays it all out but I will sum it up
>being a difficult aircraft to fly
>ground crew and maintainers have a crazy turnover since they only do a few tours and dip rarely have more than a few years experience vs RAF/RN maintainers who are mostly career military and often have 20+ years fixing the same aircraft.
>critically small budget thottled by the navy that doesn't allow for a lot of fixes and changes that should have happened
>experienced pilots keep quitting and operational squadrons have few high hour harrier pilots
This is contrasted with a Fleet Air Arm pilot who while he may be a zoomer who has just had his SHARtussy ate and has only a few hours in the harrier he can rely that his maintainers have been in the navy longer than he's been alive and that the squadron has lots of senior pilots to guide him (royal navy pilots rarely get promoted beyond Lt CMR and stay flying much longer than USN/USMC).
>you and the lads will never get to sail along side a massive fricking carrier during a celebration as it returns from BTFOing some nonwhites halfway around the world and grow old knowing they're still butthurt about some desolate islands
truly born in the wrong timeline
don't forget the linecrossing ceremonies and banter on the way down
?t=533
>crazy turnover
Because the AV8B is a fricking hanger queen and hard to work on, so expect 18 days and working weekends as regular, oh and you have to maintain physical fitness standards while most of your deployment areas are absolute garbage.
>6332 Cherry Point
Indian Mig-21s and Canadian/German F-104s easily outdo them.
Not at taking off and landing vertically they don't.
actually Indian Mig-21s land vertically all the time. usually at 500 knots straight down
Indians also operated harriers (which is probably why they keep crashing).
kek'd
I heard was some of the problem was inexperienced pilots taking off vertically, slamming from lift to forward thrust, the nozzles rotating fully and the plane hitting the deck before it had sufficient forward velocity for the wings to provide the missing lift.
May be apochraphal
thats a legit thing that can happen in a transition from hover. happened to me in DCS but I would assume not even a muhreen could be moronic enough to do it irl
I think the TU-22 was worse. 300something built and 150 or more lost in accidents
the A21/SR71s worse
The Osprey is also a aircraft with more than a few fatalities. Goes with the territory. That's why you get all the veterans preferential job placement and va benefits.
>Holy frick, is this the worst track record of literally any vehicle ever?
the craziest failure mode for the F-104 was that when used for ground attack the wings would fall off in the middle of high G low level turns due fatigue
Yet another American death trap the bongs bought like the Sherman