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Ski-jump to history
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| 02 March 2006 |
By Richard Scott Jane's Naval Consultant
London
There is no doubt that the decision to withdraw the Sea Harrier has been one of the most contentious defence issues in recent years - and one which throws the resource constraints and hard choices confronting UK defence planners into sharp relief.
The events leading to the early demise of the Sea Harrier can be traced as far back as the early 1990s, when the UK Royal Navy (RN) realised the need to re-role its carriers as power-projection assets, but it was the outcome of the 1998 Strategic Defence Review (SDR) that ultimately cast the die. In articulating a new joint expeditionary strategy for the UK's armed forces, the SDR included a commitment to bring together the RN's Sea Harrier and Royal Air Force Harrier squadrons under a single joint command to form "a flexible and deployable force optimised for the demands of the new strategic environment".
Two issues - one technical, the other essentially doctrinal - were central to the decision-making process that prompted the early retirement of the FA.2.
The first was the issue of an uprated engine. The sharp fall-off in the hover performance of the Pegasus Mk 106 engine in high ambient temperatures, narrowing vertical recovery margins to a critical degree, was a shortcoming the Sea Harrier community had been acutely aware of for some time. Indeed, operational and safety issues effectively precluded the Sea Harrier from undertaking carrier operations in hot climates, such as those encountered in the Gulf, for about six months in the year. Put simply, the aircraft had run out of puff.
The second issue pivotal to the Sea Harrier's early demise was the growing emphasis on delivering offensive air power from the sea: something highlighted by SDR supporting papers. The Ministry of Defence described this as "a central pillar to future force-projection operations".
As a consequence, the study group determined that, in a cost-constrained environment, the priority should be to strengthen carrier strike - and hence reaffirm the critical path to Future Carrier/Joint Combat Aircraft through investment in offensive air capability offered by the single-role Harrier GR.9.
The Naval Staff ultimately accepted the outcome, albeit with understandable reservations. And so the Sea Harrier has become a high-profile victim of the intense competition for scarce cash resources brought about by changed defence priorities.
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