The harrier - Naval History and Heritage Command

The Corps Goes Vertical with
The Harrier
By Ben Kristy
An AV-8B Harrier II with the VMA-513 Nightmares lands aboard USS Essex (LHD 2). The Harrier celebrates 40 years of
service in 2011. The Nightmares were the first squadron to receive the aircraft in 1971. (Photo by MC3 Gabriel S. Weber)
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Naval Aviation News

January 2011 marked the 40 th anniversary of vertical/
short take-off and landing (V/STOL) tactical aviation in
the United States—four decades since the Marine Corps
received its first AV-8A Harriers and inaugurated a new
age of U.S. Naval Aviation. Today, the AV-8B Harrier II
remains one of Marine Corps aviation’s primary weapons
and the only V/STOL attack aircraft ever fielded by the
U.S. military. As the Corps awaits the arrival of its third
generation V/STOL aircraft—the F-35B Lighting II—the
story of how this technology came to be such a crucial part
of Marine aviation is all the more remarkable.
Between 1946 and 1956, the Marine Corps reorganized to
meet the challenges of amphibious warfare in the atomic
age. World War II-style amphibious
operations, which were supported
by numerous ships anchored closely
off shore, appeared to be no longer
possible against a foe possessing
atomic weapons. Amphibious landings
would now depend on the Corps’
ability to disembark troops from
ships dispersed over the horizon from
the targeted beachhead. The Marine
Corps altered its divisional table of
organization, making the force lighter
and more easily transportable by sea,
air, and land by stripping away most
of its heavy weapons. The helicopter,
itself a new technology at the time,
provided the means of delivering and
resupplying the initial wave of troops.
The integrated use of Marine close air
support would make up for the loss of
organic firepower. Thus, the Marines
needed a tactical attack aircraft that
could be based as close to the front
lines as possible. It was against this
background that in 1957 Commandant of the Marine
Corps Gen. Randolph McCall Pate committed the service
to fielding a fleet of V/STOL aircraft. Unfortunately, there
were no such aircraft available at that time. American
aircraft manufacturers spent millions of dollars attempting
to develop functioning V/STOL aircraft between 1946
and the early 1960s, but no projects progressed beyond the
technology demonstration stage.
In the United Kingdom, however, Hawker Siddeley was
working on a revolutionary aircraft that showed promise—
the XV-6A Kestrel. The Kestrel was much closer to being
an operational tactical aircraft than anything produced
by the American aviation industry. The Army, Air Force,
and Navy all expressed some initial interest in the Kestrel,
which was extensively tested in the early 1960s in the
Lt. Gen. Thomas Miller Jr. retired from
the Marine Corps in 1979 after nearly four
decades of service. He passed away in 2007.
Miller’s determined effort to acquire and field
a tactical V/STOL fighter for the Marine Corps
remains his greatest legacy.
(Photo from National Marine Corps Museum)
United States. Interest in the XV-6A waned, however,
following the flight tests primarily because the aircraft was
limited to subsonic speeds.
In 1966, Gen. Keith McCutcheon, the Corps’ leading
expert on close air support, served as the Deputy Chief
of Staff, Air. McCutcheon had developed the close air
support tactics and procedures that allowed Marine
aviation to support Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s forces in
the Philippines during World War II. He later became
an early helicopter advocate, helping to craft the vertical
assault doctrine while commanding both HMX-1, the
Corps’ first helicopter squadron, and HMR-161 during the
Korean War. Working for McCutcheon was Col. Thomas
Miller Jr., who had his own formidable
list of credentials including combat
missions in World War II, Korea,
and Vietnam. Miller headed the Air
Weapons Requirement Branch and
was responsible for finding aircraft
suitable for Marine Corps operations.
Miller was not impressed with the
Royal Air Force’s new GR MK-1
Harrier—the operational aircraft
developed from the Kestrel—because
its 19,500-lb.-thrust Pegasus MK-
101 engine did not offer the Marine
Corps enough of a performance
advantage over the Douglas A-4
Skyhawks already in service. Miller’s
interest in the aircraft increased,
however, after learning that the next
generation Pegasus engine offered
2,000 additional pounds of thrust—all
of which could be converted directly
into carrying more ordnance.
Miller worked with Hawker Siddeley
to arrange for a series of flight tests in England, but did so
carefully to avoid upsetting Naval Air Systems Command
(NAVAIR) and Congress, and used his attendance at the
1968 Farnborough Air Show as a cover story. Miller, Lt.
Col. Clarence ‘Bud’ Baker, and Brig. Gen. W.G. Johnson
visited Farnborough in civilian clothes so as not to arouse
suspicion from the ever-present trade press. After the close
of the air show, Miller and Baker completed 20 flights in
the Harrier.
They were delighted with the aircraft, and told McCutcheon
that the Harrier was the V/STOL aircraft the Marines had
long desired. After Miller and McCutcheon briefed and
received approval from Chapman, McCutcheon created
a small team comprised of himself, Miller, Baker, and Ed
Harper (the program manager for the A-4) to begin the
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process of formulating a change to the Corps’ FY1970
budget request for the purchase of an initial batch of 12
Harriers. The challenge was to convince NAVAIR, the
Pentagon, and Congress to purchase an unproven firstgeneration
revolutionary aircraft, of foreign design, that was
undesired by the Navy.
McCutcheon and Miller’s team initiated a period of
public and private briefings to justify the Corps’ purchase
of the Harrier. Miller gained the support of the aircraft
procurement sub-section of the President’s advisory
committee. Other committee members helped to deflect
opposition to the Harrier in various quarters of the Defense
Department. The Navy agreed, somewhat reluctantly, to
support the purchase on the condition that the Marine
Corps would not ask for additional funding to pay for the
aircraft. The Corps canceled the purchase of 17 McDonnell
Douglas F-4Js to free up the required $57.6 million for the
first production batch of Harriers.
Miller and Baker gained the support of the major American
aircraft manufacturers with the promise that after the
initial batch of British-produced aircraft the rest of the
Marine Harriers would be produced under license in the
United States. Miller used his relationship with the head of
McDonnell Douglas, Sandy McDonnell, and the founder
of the company, James McDonnell, to convince the aviation
industry giant that the Harrier was good for both the Marine
Corps and the American aviation industry. Congressional
hearings on the Corps’ acquisition of the Harrier began in
March 1969, leading to the purchase of the initial batch
of 12 AV-8A Harriers. The remaining aircraft would be
manufactured in the United States.
Hawker Siddeley selected McDonnell Douglas, which
was completing production on the similarly sized A-4
Skyhawk, as its future production partner. The estimated
costs of establishing a Harrier assembly line in America
were prohibitive, however, and would have added at least
an additional year to the procurement schedule. Congress
dropped the requirement for the Harrier to be produced
domestically; the entire production run of 110 AV-8As and
their engines were produced in the United Kingdom. After
hearings in fall 1971 on the relative merits of the Army, Air
In the winter of 1976-1977, 14 VMA-231 AV-8As deployed
aboard USS Franklin D. Roosevelt (CV 42) to test the
ability of a V/STOL aircraft to operate as part of a full
carrier air wing. The tests showed the Harrier was fully
capable of operating alongside non-V/STOL aircraft.
(Photo from National Marine Corps Museum)
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An AV-8A with VMA-542 taxis from onto Lyman Road, Camp Lejeune, during exercises in 1978. The ability to operate from such
austere locations was the main reason why the Marine Corps acquired the Harrier. (Photo from National Marine Corps Museum)
Force, and Marine methodology of conducting close air
support, the Senate Armed Services Committee threatened
to cut off funding for the Harrier program at 60 aircraft. Once
again, Marine political prowess paid off and full funding for
the entire AV-8A fleet was secured in the FY1973 budget.
The first AV-8As were officially accepted by the Marine Corps
in January 1971, with VMA-513 beginning flight operations
that April. Operational tests at Camp Lejeune and aboard
USS Guam (LPH 9) demonstrated the AV-8A performed
as expected. By the late 1970s, three attack squadrons and a
training squadron were operating the AV-8A and TAV-8A.
Efforts to develop a follow-on supersonic V/STOL aircraft,
the AV-16, were stopped in the face of massive costs associated
with development of the required engine. In 1975, however,
the Chief of Naval Operations executive board approved a
plan to use existing funds to explore future improvements to
the AV-8A airframe proposed by McDonnell Douglas, thus
beginning the development of the AV-8B Harrier II. Miller,
now a general and the Marine Corps’ Deputy Chief of Staff
for Aviation, spearheaded the effort to acquire funding for
the new aircraft. Through his exertions, the more advanced
American-produced Boeing AV-8B entered service in 1985.
The first Marine Corps V/STOL combat air strike occurred
on 17 January 1991 when a flight of VMA-311 AV-8Bs
destroyed an Iraqi artillery battery near the Saudi Arabian
town of Khafji. Subsequent operations flown by the enhanced
AV-8B Plus and Night Attack variants in the Balkans,
Iraq, and Afghanistan further demonstrated the combat
capabilities of the Harrier II. In March 2011, AV-8Bs with
the 26 th MEU were among the first aircraft to attack ground
targets in Libya at the beginning of Operation Odyssey
Dawn. Writing after his retirement from the Marine Corps
in 1979, Miller, the first Marine to fly the Harrier, described
the value of V/STOL aviation for the Marine Corps: “This
improvement would be the saving of many Marines’ lives
while in combat and would add significantly to the probability
of their success in battle.” As the Marine Corps marks four
decades of V/STOL operations, the Harrier continues to live
up to Miller’s expectations.
Ben Kristy is the aviation curator at the National Museum of the
Marine Corps in Quantico, Va.
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