Video: AV-8B Harrier II demonstration at 2003 Vectren Dayton Airshow

The Harrier today is one of the truly unique and most widely known of military aircraft. It is unique as the only fixed wing V/STOL aircraft in the free world.

It also is unusual in the international nature of its development, which brought the design from the first British P.1127 prototype to the AV-8B Harrier II of today.

Before it entered RAF service, the U.S. Marine Corps evinced a major interest in the Harrier for attack missions, and procurement of Marine AV-8As was initiated. The Harrier entered service with the RAF and the U.S. Marines in the early seventies. It was followed in both services by a limited number of two-place trainer versions, designated TAV-8As for the Marines.

Upgrading of the AV-8A with some of the systems improvements of the AV-8B resulted in the AV-8C configuration. Two test aircraft were reconfigured for evaluation and a limited AV-8C conversion program was undertaken.

An ongoing remanufacture program for selected Harriers in the inventory will provide new engines and radar, a Forward Looking Infrared Radar (FLIR), moving map and night vision goggles. These improvements will give the Harrier a day and night attack capability, and will extend the service life into the next century as well as greatly improving warfighting capability.

Source: US Navy