Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Today In History: Jumping jet flash.

On April 1st, 1969 the first jet fighter that could take off straight up like a helicopter went into service with the Royal Air Force. Seriously.

Twenty-five years later people still oohed and aahed to see one in a spy action thriller.

8 comments:

BryanP said...

Yah. I remember long conversations with people who were convinced that we should scrap every fighter plane in the inventory and replace them all with V/STOL models. They were convinced that in The Coming War nukes would tear up every runway we have and the only planes that would be useful would be widely dispersed Harrier type craft and helicopters to support them.

BryanP

Zendo Deb said...

They are cool.... whenever one shows up at an air show, people ooooh and ahhh over them.

Rustmeister said...

Whenever I see one now, I only think of how damned loud they are.

Them, and the U2. Unbelievably loud.

Anonymous said...

Have you see the "you tube" video of the F-35 v/Stol variant doing it's thing?

Wicked cool. Science Fiction cool.

Makes the Harrier look 40 years old. :-)

Neutrino Cannon said...

Yah. I remember long conversations with people who were convinced that we should scrap every fighter plane in the inventory and replace them all with V/STOL models. They were convinced that in The Coming War nukes would tear up every runway we have and the only planes that would be useful would be widely dispersed Harrier type craft and helicopters to support them.

Bill Gunston was fanatic about that, liked to slam the ATF program for not emphasizing V/STOL capabilities.

Anonymous said...

I wonder what it says about me that when Tam mentioned a Harrier showed up in a spy action thriller, I thought of The Living Daylights and not True Lies.

Damn cool aircraft to this day.

dave said...

...liked to slam the ATF program for not emphasizing V/STOL capabilities.

Yeah, that's just what we need: the BATmen with jet aircraft. Because the body count isn't high enough.

(Yes, I know what you meant.)

Anonymous said...

Just saying, the Harrier showed up in an episode of The Avengers in, oh, 1967. So I got your spy thriller, right here.

I knew Emma Peel. Emma Peel was a friend of mine...

--Steed