Marine Jet Crashes Off Coast of Florida

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. -- A Marine fighter jet based in North Carolina crashed Tuesday and the Coast Guard and Navy were searching for the pilot.

The Marine AV-8B Harrier crashed about 9:20 a.m. about 20 miles off the coast of St. Augustine, said Donnie Brzuska, a Coast Guard spokesman.

The Coast Guard located an oil slick from the aircraft, but so far have not found the pilot.

Another aircraft pilot reported that the pilot ejected, but he was not seen touching down, Brzuska said. The name of the missing pilot had not been released early Tuesday.....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/06/AR2005120600765.html

nt

I understand the "hover" aspect is difficult to master.

With the ability to hover lasting no more than 90 Seconds at a time AND when used as a VTOL (Vertical Takeoff and landing) plane, its combat time is about 12 minutes and than only armed for air to air combat (The 12 minute comment is from an article I read years ago, but I can not find on line).

Now the Harrier is generally used as a Conventional takeoff plane or as a jump jet, both of which permits increase range AND increase missiles and bombs to be carried.

Furthermore the Harrier engine rotates, i.e goes from pointing straight down to pointing to the rear, if either engines fails to rotate the pilot must eject (Through if both do work together the plane may be able to be landed somehow).

Thus while the Harrier is a difficult plane to fly, the chief reason is the short time period to train for VTOL given the limited fly time in that mode. This is complicated by the complex system of pivoting the engines, which means if there is more things to go wrong mechanically than in a conventional Jet.

Thus the problem of the Harrier is based on its design, hard to learn to fly AND a huge increase in the chance of something going wrong.

More on the Harrier:
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/av-8.htm
http://www.history.navy.mil/planes/av-8b.pdf
http://web.triton.net/c/cyro/pages/Harrier.html

12 mintues time on target is probably at it's maximum range.

Sorry to sound like a smart*ss.

The engine in the Harrier doesn't rotate. It's fixed within the body of the fuselage. What does rotate are four large external nozzles that can point from straight down to straight back. These nozzles provide the directional thrust that allows the aircraft to hover and to move forward.

Unlike the Yak VTOL which operate two set of engines, the HArrier cone permits one engine for both lift and flight, but the problem is still the movement of the cone which has to work 100% right or the Harrier will crash. This seems to be the main reason for the high crash rate of the Harriers more than pilot having a difficult time flying the Jet.

He was picked up by the Coast Guard about an hour ago. No link yet. Good news.