A hovering flight comparison between a Spanish Harrier II Plus and a British F-35B

@DefAviation ES 7·28·2024 · 20:34 0

The Royal International Air Tattoo has left us without the beautiful image of a joint flight of a Harrier II and an F-35B.

A Spanish Harrier II wins a RAFCTE trophy in England and flies with a small giraffe
The passion for the Spanish Harrier II at the great British airshow RIAT 2024

Last year's edition saw the joint flight, featuring an EAV-8B+ Harrier II Plus from the 9th Squadron of the Spanish Navy and an F-35B from the 207 Squadron of the British Royal Air Force (RAF). As you may recall, BAE Systems Air published these images of the display:

Although they did not fly together, both aircraft were shown performing static flight displays at this year's RIAT. This afternoon, Epicaviation47 posted a video comparing them, asking the million-dollar question in the title: "Who is better?"

At the time of writing, all three reader comments are in support of the Harrier. An English-speaking reader has the following thoughts on both aircraft:

"British Sea Harriers shot down 23 Argentinian Aircraft in The Falklands / Malvinas without loss (air to air kills). F35 has got a hell of a way to go to beat that!"

I am Spanish and a big fan of the Spanish Harriers, so I am not objective on this subject. However, that does not prevent me from acknowledging some obvious facts about both aircraft. First of all, the Harrier II is an older, less powerful and less advanced aircraft than the F-35B. Considering the stealth characteristics of the F-35B alone, the Harrier II would probably not stand a chance in an air-to-air fight against the fifth-generation fighter.

However, there are a few details I don't like about the F-35B's powerplant. The engine on the Harrier and Harrier II is a Rolls-Royce Pegasus turbofan with vectored thrust. It has four steerable nozzles, two cold air nozzles at the front and two larger hot air nozzles at the rear.

The F-35B needs two engines to hover: the main engine, which has a steerable nozzle, and a smaller, additional engine in the center of the aircraft. The second engine is dead weight for the rest of the flight, since it contributes nothing to the aircraft and takes up valuable real estate (which reduces the capacity of the weapons bay and forced the exclusion of an integrated cannon).

That aside, the F-35B is a supersonic aircraft, while the Harrier II is subsonic (it can reach a maximum speed of 1,080 km/h). However, in an aerial combat this is not so important (fighter aircraft rarely reach supersonic speeds in their missions, in order to save fuel). The additional engine and more advanced technology of the F-35B result in a larger logistical footprint and lower availability than the Harrier II, to a worrying extent.

To give you an idea, according to the US Navy, Marine Harrier IIs had over 90% availability during the Gulf War (1991). The 60 USMC Harrier IIs that participated in that operation flew 3,380 sorties for a total of 4,083 flight hours. The Harrier II gave an excellent result.

However, US F-35s are currently at or above 51% availability, far short of their target of 65% and well below the 90% that Harrier IIs surpassed in the Gulf War. In 2023, a US Congressional report noted that USMC F-35Bs have lower availability rates than Harrier IIs, despite the latter being older aircraft. Furthermore, F-35B availability rates are declining rapidly. The question that comes to mind is: Has anyone considered making a Harrier III so that current Harrier II operators don't have to rely on the much more expensive and defective F-35Bs?

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Photos: BAE Systems Air / U.S. Marine Corps / U.S. Navy.