In November 1976 a squadron exchange took place when the RAF Harrier GR.1-equipped No. 1(F) Squadron brought four Harrier GR.1s and a T.2 to Dijon AB in France. In a time-honored tradition of "zapping" the other unit's aircraft with some sort of temporary marking, one of the RAF crew drew a cartoon Harrier attempting to mate with the stork tail marking of the host unit, a Mirage IIIE of Escadre de Chasse 1/2 Cigones.
The night before the departure of the RAF crew, while the British guest were kept busy with the reception, a group of French air force personnel set to work on the Harrier T.2. The following morning when they arrived at the ramp, the RAF found their Harrier T.2 completely painted pink- the markings were masked and not overpainted and three coats were used- one sprayed and two applied with a roller. Amidst a festive departure (which included a low flyby of Dijon with the pink Harrier T.2 leading the GR.1s) the exchange group returned to RAF Wittering to great amusement of the personnel in attendance.
The squadron commander, however, felt less than amused. He ordered that no one from the exchange group would go home for the weekend until the pink Harrier was returned to its original scheme. However, it was discovered the French had used an emulsion based paint rather than a water-based paint and despite an entire weekend of effort, the pink Harrier ended having to be resprayed in its gray/green disruptive camouflage color as the pink paint settled in every panel line despite the efforts at removal.
Source: BAe/McDonnell Douglas Harrier by Andy Evans. The Crowood Press Ltd, 1998 (Crowood Aviation Series), p40-41.
In 1964 the Tripartite Kestrel Evaluation Squadron, or TES, was formed in the UK by the governments of the United States, West Germany, and Britain. The purpose of the TES was to perform operational trials with the Hawker P.1127 Kestrel.
Each nation provided personnel and pilots for the TES and West Germany was represented by Colonel Gerhard Barkhorn, who was the second-highest scoring ace in the Luftwaffe during World War 2 with 301 victories. The Germans participated in the TES to forward their own knowledge base with their own V/STOL project, the VAK.191. On one test flight, Barkhorn cut the throttle too early while in vertical landing mode and the Kestrel dropped quickly and destroyed the undercarriage. As Col. Barkhorn walked away from the crash-landing, he kicked the aircraft out of frustration and declared that the wrecked Kestrel was the "302nd Allied aircraft" he had destroyed.
Source: BAe/McDonnell Douglas Harrier by Andy Evans. The Crowood Press Ltd, 1998 (Crowood Aviation Series), p11-13.
During Operation Iraqi Freedom, six Marine Corps AV-8B Harrier II squadrons participated in the initial 26 days of combat flying nearly 2000 sorties from land bases in Kuwait and five of the Navy's big deck amphibious carriers. As the front lines rapidly moved northward towards Baghdad further away from the ships, the Harrier squadrons faced the problem of getting aerial refueling as high demand by other Coalition aircraft made tanking capacity scarce.
An out-of-action Iraqi air base at An Numaniyah was set up as for forward operating base to refuel the Marine Harriers. As the base's runways had been knocked out by Coalition air attacks, only the Harrier could use the base due to its unique V/STOL abilities. On 8 April 2003 a section of AV-8B Harrier IIs from VMA-542 landed at An Numaniyah at night, becoming the first Coalition tactical jets to touch down on Iraqi soil.
Source: Air Forces Monthly, August 2009. "Marine Harriers Over Iraq" by Warren E. Thompson, p80-81.
