In a press release dated 25 November 1960, Hawker Aircraft confirmed the existence of a revolutionary new military aircraft that promised to combine the unique take-off and landing ability of the helicopter with the conventional performance of a jet fighter.
The resulting P.1127/Harrier family of vertical/short take-off and landing (V/STOL) combat aircraft, and the Rolls-Royce Pegasus series of vectored-thrust turbofans, together formed one of Britain’s most important contributions to postwar military aviation technology. Rather than using rotors or direct jet thrust, the P.1127 had an innovative vectored-thrust turbofan engine. It should also be remembered that the original powerplant concept was a derivative of a French invention, and that the aircraft would never have seen the light of day without substantial American support. The Harrier/Pegasus combination ultimately proved to be a very successful international product.
Back more than half a century, the very fact that the P.1127’s empty weight would decide whether or not the new aircraft could leave the ground by jet-lift alone, raised considerable doubt in people’s minds about the project. Hawker Aircraft had built its reputation on single-engined fighters, largely powered by Rolls-Royce engines, that looked superb and were highly manoeuvrable, but were by no means lightweight. The ultimate Hawker fighter was the solid and reliable Hunter, powered by a Rolls-Royce Avon turbojet, which had a good performance and a long-lasting airframe, and sold in large numbers.
The P.1127 was clearly not going to be a Hunter replacement over a wide range of combat roles. Its marketability was completely unknown and unpredictable, although it was clear from the outset that installing twice the thrust of a conventional ground attack aircraft would not make for a low-cost aircraft. Developing the Harrier family represented a significant break for Hawker away from multi-role conventional fighters.
More than forty years later, the Harrier, albeit in significantly different versions, is still very much in active service with the Royal Air Force, the US Marine Corps and the navies of India, Spain and Thailand. Produced by the successor companies – Hawker Siddeley, British Aircraft Corporation, British Aerospace and BAE Systems in the UK and McDonnell Douglas (now part of the Boeing empire) in the USA, the Harrier has proved its worth to Britain in the Falklands, Belize, Iraq, the Balkans and Afghanistan and to the US Marine Corps for carrier and land-based operations around the world, not least in the Middle East.
Through the first decade of the twenty-first century the British Aerospace/McDonnell Douglas Harrier family continues to be the world’s only high-performance V/STOL combat aircraft to see service on a significant scale, just as its Rolls-Royce Pegasus vectored-thrust turbofan remains the only series-built V/STOL engine.