How not to land a Harrier

[crazyeddie]

http://www.the-daily-politics.com/home/48-video/1631-raf-harrier-crash-landing-kandahar-may-09-balls-of-steel

[Eddie]

This has already been discussed in the news thread.

[159th_Viper]

Ta - missed the vid the first time around :)

[rogue_blade]

What was the aftermath of this? Pilot error?

[EtherealN]

Looks like low-speed followed by excessive flare, which would mean pilot error.

[rogue_blade]

I thought the flare was his attempt to abort and climb.

[EtherealN]

Could be, and might have worked if it was done half a second earlier if that is the case.

Would be interesting to know if there were any failures causing troubles for him - for example inability to keep speed up due to engine problems or something like that.

[zakobi]

I remember something with that you got less than 2 minutes to land if doing it vertical due to the amount of coolant. Add the hotter climate we might give better guesses regarding machine failure.

[EtherealN]

It's 90 seconds of hover. This does not apply though unless this immediately followed a failed hover landing (unlikely to even try something as dangerous as a hover landing in that place since they have a perfectly good runway).

 

A failed hover landing that causes damage would most likely occur from sucking in exhaust air, though, not anything related to the coolant, and usually the result would be the plane imitating a helicopter in rotor vortex ring. ;)