whiteladder

The Gr9 also carried the Terma pod on a belly station towards the end of its service, this had 5 AAR-57 mws sensors (UV) and 8 flare magazines.

Dangerman, When where you flying Harriers? You probably flew over my house.

Thales are doing a similar thing for the Royal Navy. They are developing the LMM Martlet to counter small target such as speed boats. It is basically a Starstreak missile which was a British manpad reused for another role. http://www.thinkdefence.co.uk/uk-complex-weapons/lightweight-multirole-missile-martlet/

There were at least 2 Skyhawks brought down with 30mm cannon fire, as well as numerous Helicopter destroyed on the ground.

The original Bl755 behaved in much the same way, it had a fixed time delay before deploying the bomblets. this meant it was limited to low level laydown delivery. It was available in 4 marks, fix delay in Mk1, Mk2 had a shorter delay for use on faster aircraft (tornado), Mk3 had different suspension lugs and mk4 had (improved or IBl755) differing delays and improved bomblets. In the early 90s when the RAF started to move away from purely low level operations they developed RBl755, this had a radar proximity sensor on the tail of the bomb that didn`t start the deployment sequence until the bomb had reached a specific height, this allowed it to be dropped from Med altitude.

Both of these making very interesting reading, does any know if Volume 3 is available anywhere?

The main problem as I see it would be you have no way of controlling the attitude of the object as it re enters (without a RCS). It could well be travelling backwards any combination of revolution around any axis. Ignoring the thermal effect the aero dynamic pressures would rapidly increase past the structural strength of the airframe.

Sea Ceptor test firing HMS Argyll launches first Sea Ceptor Air Defence missile

HMS Ocean?

That's presuming you can see further than the end of your own ship, that the other shipping in the area has adequate lighting, the visibility conditions in the USS John S. McCain incident were reported as poor and the collision of the USS Fitzgerald happened at night.

There are a number of issues at play here, but I think that it is highly unlikely that a problem with the operation of the USN ships sensors, to have 2 radars and the AIS all faulty at the same time seems very improbable. My point in my first post is that the Arleigh Burke class has multiple sensor that aid in safe navigation. I would be very surprised if a human factor wasn`t involved here. From the tankers crew point of view I agree there may have been an over reliance on AIS, they may have assumed this was giving them a full picture of the traffic around them, but it is common for warships to turn off their beacon for obvious operational reasons. The alertness of the crew is kind of irrelevant, there is also an assumption that they were not aware of the tankers presence, an alert crew can still misinterpret the information being display to them and take the wrong course of actions.

I don't think that the capabilities of the sensors had anything to do with these accidents. The Arleigh Burke has 2 short range navigation radars the AN /SPS-67 and AN/SPS-73. These are designed to aid in navigation and will detect coastlines, other shipping, navigation bouys etc. The AN/SPS-73 for example will track 200 plus contacts, and is directly intergrated into the ship navigation systems. All warships are designed to navigate in congested water ways, at some point they all have to enter harbours where the navigation risks are much higher.

As I said in a previous post I don`t believe the strakes/gunpods play any roll in the aerodynamics of the aircraft. Firstly if you read the natops for the AV-8b/Tav-8b for there are no mentions of any adverse stability effects that the pilot should be aware of if they are not fitted. There is a warning note to say if the strakes or gun pods are not installed some suck-down effect is present during a vertical landing and a power increase maybe required. No mention that the aircraft should not be flown without strakes./pod appears anywhere in the document. In fact in the whole document there is no mention of the strakes/pods having any aerodynamic effect at all. In the section about conventional flight characteristics strakes are not mentioned in relation to either pitch,roll or yaw stability. In contrast there is a Paragraph(11.4.5.2) about the danger of departures from the Air refuelling probe and high AOA, and the adverse effect the probe can have in combination asymmetrical wing loads. I have also looked through all the research papers/PHD thesis we hold (Cranfield University) that refer to Harrier/av-8b filght characteristics and haven`t found one that mention the strakes/pods/lids in any context other than HGI and hover performance.

Hms Queen Elizabeth dock at her home port for the first time

We watched Dunkirk as a family during our summer Holiday, we really liked it, I also bought the Dunkirk book written by the historical advisor to the film. There is an interview with Nolan in the book. He talks about going back to watch films like Saving Private Ryan and the Thin Red Line and making a conscious decision to have the threat in the film as implied rather than full in your face. You don`t actual see any Germans in the film until the end and then they are blurred, he said he wanted the feeling of encroaching peril and fear, I think not showing the perimeter was part of this. You just get to hear the fighting and shelling getting closer. He also said in first draft of the script he had the characters making reference Nazi`s all the time and then realized he didn't want to make a war film, but a film about survival, personal and of a nation. He said selling the concept of a film about defeat to Hollywood was a challenge. You are right about the sound, the part of the film that effected me the most was the Stuka attack on the Mole, and it was the sound, really made you want to run. I can`t image what it was like in real life. Great Film.

This site has some interesting info about the B52 harm incident. If you look all the way through the comments section there are comments from the crew of the B-52, including the gunner Zach Peters. https://bentcorner.com/in-harms-way/

Great book with load of info on Shrike/Standard/Harm Iron Hand: Smashing the Enemy's Air Defences

Wikipedia has them f-4g shooting about 92 during Desert Storm

That is a great video, flying at night in this is going to be a blast!!!

I agree the main reason for the strakes/pod is Lift improvement/HGI, without them in place the front air dam flap has no effect. The GR7/9 routinely flew with an asymmetric pod configuration, not sure this would be possible if the were play such an important role in aerodynamic stability. The previous generation harriers also flew without any pod routinely.

The normal compliment is 40 aircraft, but has the capacity for 70+. As a rough rule of thumb you need 1000 tonnes of displacement for every aircraft carried. The Charles De Gaulle deployed to Syria with an air group of 30, the CDG has a hanger area of 4200 sq M where as the QE2 has an area of 5115 sq M.

Does anyone know the answer to this.. As far I know the AV-8b and the GR5/6/7/9 share the same ACP, and in the pictures I can find the station selectors are the same. How does it handle the 2 extra pylons that the GR has? I know these are dedicate sidewinder stations, but presumable there is a way to select/jettison them?

Ohh thought it was a Harrier sub variant (walks away embarrassed :Flush:)