The passion for the Spanish Harrier II at the great British airshow RIAT 2024

@DefAviation ES 7·20·2024 · 18:39 0

As I have mentioned in other years, the Spanish Navy has become very popular at The Royal International Air Tattoo (RIAT).

The difficult landing of a Harrier II of the Spanish Navy due to heavy rain
The admired flight of a Spanish Harrier II with an F-35B, its expected replacement

For a few years now, the EAV-8B+ Harrier II Plus fighter aircraft of the 9th Squadron have been attending this festival, one of the largest events of this type in the world, which is held annually at the base British aircraft from RAF Fairford, England. And they are not treated like just another participant, despite the large number of aircraft from different countries that attend this air festival. Yesterday, the RIAT noted that the Spanish Harrier was "a crowd favourite last year."

The passion for the Spanish Harrier IIs at this British air festival reaches such a point that on July 15 the RIAT used the image of one of these fighter aircraft from the 9th Squadron in one of its official posters. The image shows the beautiful decoration that this plane had in its drift at RIAT 2023. This passion is explained because the Harrier and Harrier II were highly admired aircraft in the United Kingdom, but the last British Harrier IIs were withdrawn from the service in December 2010. For the British, seeing the Spanish Harrier IIs must be very nostalgic.

This Saturday, The Fighter Community has published a video showing one of the exhibitions of the Spanish Harrier II at RIAT 2024. This exhibition included one of the moments that always generates the most excitement with these airplanes: the hovering flight.

This afternoon, Lex Hunter has released another video of this exhibition on the that we can see the attention that the spotters (as amateur airplane photographers are popularly known) paid at RIAT 2024 when watching this Spanish Navy fighter fly. In the video we can hear the applause of the public at the end of this exhibition:

In addition to the Harrier II of the 9th Squadron, RIAT 2024 has also highlighted this F- 5BM of the 23rd Wing of the Spanish Air Force, with a text that is an exhibition of the famous English irony: "The Spanish Air Force have landed. Smiling like they just won the Euros!" At least they take it with humor... 😄

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Main photo: Royal International Air Tattoo.