Proving the Harrier Carrier

Admiral Zumwalt, CNO 1970-74

When Admiral Elmo Zumwalt become the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) in April 1970, it was a time of looming fiscal austerity as the Vietnam War commanded the resources of the Department of Defense. In the background of the attention Southeast Asia required of the US armed forces also came a significant build up of the Soviet Navy's submarine fleet. In the event of any outbreak of war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact in Europe, the North Atlantic sea lanes would be a vital logistical link between the United States and its forward deployed forces in Europe. Lacking a significant blue water projection force like the American carrier battle groups, the Soviet Navy embarked on a massive submarine build up to not only counter the carriers but also provide a stealthy means of cutting the North Atlantic sea lanes to disrupt the supply of NATO forces in Europe. When Admiral Zumwalt become the CNO, he was juggling both the Soviet submarine threat as well as the Vietnam War. The election of President Nixon meant that an eventual draw down in Vietnam was coming and that Navy needs needed to focus on future threats like the Soviet submarine force. There was a considerable debate on how to do this in light of the massive budgetary drain Southeast Asia had been on the nation. The three previous officers to hold the CNO position were naval aviators- Zumwalt was a surface combatant officer who saw antisubmarine warfare as the key to offsetting the Soviet submarine threat. Some wanted expansion of the super carrier fleet, others like Admiral Hyman Rickover pushed for expansion of the American nuclear submarine fleet. The problem was that all those options were expensive. 

Zumwalt championed what was called the Sea Control Ship (SCS) which was a modern equivalent of the escort carriers of the Second World War. Initial naval studies had looked at destroyer-sized vessels with small flight decks, but by 1972 the SCS concept had evolved into 17,000 ton vessel just under 700 feet in length that could embark sixteen ASW helicopters and five Harriers for self-defense. The SCS would not have catapults or arresting gear as these would drive up the expense as well as the size of the SCS concept. Like an aircraft carrier, there would be a spacious hangar deck but the cost of the SCS would be capped at $100 million which in those days was about a tenth the cost of the new Nimitz class super carriers. The lower cost meant a class of eight could easily be built and quickly to take up ASW patrols in the North Atlantic. 

The USS Guam under way with her Harriers

With the support of the Secretary of Defense, Zumwalt had the helicopter assault ship USS Guam (LPH-9) transformed into an interim Sea Control Ship to demonstrate the concept in 1972. The USMC's recent acquisition of the AV-8A Harrier for close air support dovetailed perfectly into Zumwalt's SCS concept. Given that one of the major reasons the Marines wanted the Harrier was for its flexible basing away from air base runways, the deck of an amphibious assault ship was just as good as any dispersed basing scheme for Marine Harriers. VMA-513, the first Marine Corps Harrier squadron, became operational with the AV-8A the year prior and were selected to form a detachment to deploy on the USS Guam. The pilots working with naval engineers working on the SCS program created a Frensel lens landing aid that floated in oil for self-stabilization and projected a glideslope from the deck of the Guam. The Harrier detachment operated off the Guam for a total of over 170 sorties in day and night with the initial workups taking place off the coast of South Carolina near VMA-513's base at MCAS Beaufort. After this first phase, the Guam then deployed to the rough sea conditions of the North Atlantic and the AV-8As performed flawlessly. Despite being primarily close-air support tasked, VMA-513 worked on air combat tactics including the use of vectoring the nozzles in forward flight (VIFFing) to increase the maneuverability of the AV-8A in a dogfight. Wired to also carry AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, the AV-8As during the Guam deployment to the North Atlantic even made intercepts of Soviet Tu-95 Bear and Tu-16 Badger maritime reconnaissance aircraft. 

Though the deployment aboard the USS Guam was successful in proving the SCS concept, it was Admiral Zumwalt's retirement in 1974 that ended the SCS program despite preliminary contracts being issued to shipyards for SCS vessels. Zumwalt's replacement, Admiral James Holloway, was a naval aviator and Rickover student. Given Admiral Rickover's tremendous influence in the Navy, his opposition to the SCS concept ended the program in 1974. Despite the end of the SCS, the Marines continued to send Harrier detachment to sea to gain shipboard operating experience. In 1976, for example, Harriers embarked with the air wing of the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt to develop ways of integrating V/STOL operations during launch and recovery operations. 

AV-8A Harriers on the aft of the flight deck of the USS Nassau

But that wasn't quite the end of the Sea Control Ship concept in the United States even though the Royal Navy commissioned the Invincible class V/STOL carriers, with the lead ship HMS Invincible launching in 1977. In early 1981, the NATO allies had pointed out that US wasn't honoring its defense commitment to have two aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean. Tensions in the Middle East at that time meant one of the Mediterranean carriers was in the Indian Ocean, leaving on a single carrier in the Mediterranean. At a meeting on an unrelated matter in Washington, the Secretary of the Navy, Commandant of the Marine Corps and the CNO came to discuss issue and the question arose if the defense commitment could be met if some Harrier squadrons were deployed on one of the new Tarawa-class amphibious assault carriers. VMA-231 had just returned from a shipboard deployment during a NATO exercise when they got word they'd be heading back out on the USS Nassau (LHA-4). They were paired up with another Marine Harrier squadron, VMA-542, that was recalled in short order from training at Twentynine Palms in California. With VMA-231 having recent shipboard experience, they took the lead in transforming the USS Nassau into a big Harrier carrier. Since no previous vessel since the USS Guam SCS trials in 1972 had operated so many Harriers as an air wing, the Navy augmented the deck crew of the Nassau with those with experience on the super carrier fleet. The notice for the two squadrons to deploy was short (the commander of VMA-231 told his superior that they could go to sea in 48 hours or as soon as an amphibious assault ship was available) that the whole concept was worked on at sea as the USS Nassau transited the Atlantic for the Mediterranean. By the time the reached their operational patrol area, the crew could launch eight Harriers in only 100 seconds and recover the same number of Harriers in just over two minutes. Because the Harrier wasn't as dependent upon the wind over the deck as conventional aircraft on a large super carrier, the Nassau's battle group had a great deal of tactical flexibility for maneuver during the flight operations than what would normally be the case for a conventional carrier battle group. The Sixth Fleet that was in charge of Mediterranean operations was impressed with the Marines' work and the ad hoc air wing spent 103 days on patrol before being relieved by a conventional carrier battle group. During the patrol, the Nassau's air wing screened for the USS Saratoga off the coast of Libya and participated in exercises to demonstrate the Harrier's ability to surge sorties against land targets. Using a bombing range in Tunisia, the two Marine Harrier squadrons surged sixty sorties in eight hours. The Nassau deployment had a great influence on two NATO allies that would eventually get their own Harrier carriers- Spain and Italy. Today, Marine AV-8B Harrier IIs routinely deploy as part of the Aviation Combat Element (the air wing of an amphibious assault ship) at sea. 

Source: Harrier II: Validating V/STOL by Lon O. Nordeen. Naval Institute Press, 2006, pp 33-38. Aircraft Carriers: A History of Carrier Aviation and Its Influence on World Events 1946-2000 by Norman Palomar. Potomac Books, 2008, pp 294-295. Photos: Wikipedia, Rolls Royce, USMC.

Flying High This Past Week

This is a new little feature for the blog I thought I'd start doing on a weekly basis called "Flying High This Past Week". I've noticed in following the stats and page views for this blog that sometimes some unexpected past posts become popular for a variety of reasons ranging from an external link on a forum or another website to Google searches that direct folks to a particular topic. Think of this little feature as a way of finding some past articles I've written that you may have missed that might feed your inner avgeek!

• The Marine Corps Bet On the Harrier: This is the latest article posted on 21 February, this one takes a look at how the Marines adeptly navigated the treacherous waters of military procurement to get their hands on an aircraft that would not be picked up by any other of the US military branches. "We want to buy a whole slug of them and get started and have a meaningful program! - General McCutcheon, USMC Deputy Chief of Aviation in 1969, in his testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee.
• The Sud-Ouest SO 6000: France's First Jet Aircraft: Posted 16 February, this article takes a look at the first French jet aircraft that had a rather unique development story and unique among pioneering jet aircraft of the day, might be well considered the very first VLJ.
• The Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet Takes To the Air Again: Posted on 1 February 2011, this article looks at a Komet glider replica built by Josef Kurz, a glider enthusiast in postwar Germany. The replica glider was as close to the original Komet as possible (minus the Walter rocket engine, of course) and was first flown in 1996 and is part of the EADS Heritage Flight. 
• Operation Ranch Hand and Agent Orange: I had posted this article on 7 April 2010 on the background and operation of the airborne spraying of defoliants in Vietnam. The unfortunate legacies of Ranch Hand still linger in the health problems of many who were exposed to the Agent Orange herbicide during the flights that were conducted from 1962 to 1971.
• The Genesis of the Predator UAV: Posted on 26 February 2011, this article took a look at Abraham Karem, an Israeli immigrant and inventor in the United States, who in 1982 secured DARPA seed money to create a long endurance UAV that was quite unlike any of the prior long endurance UAVs that had flown before. Please also note the comments from some of my readers in this article that corrected some of my errors in the original article in regards to the operational deployment of the first Predators to the Balkans.
• The Turboprop B-17 Flying Fortress: From 19 June 2010, this is what happens you take a surplus B-17 and fit it with the Rolls Royce Dart engines from a Vickers Viscount!

The Marine Corps Bet on the Harrier

Hawker P.1172 Kestrel in KES markings

For a large part of the postwar history of American military aviation, the procurement of non-American aircraft was an unusual exception. I had written back in 2011 about the efforts that led to the selection of the Dassault Falcon 20 jet as the basis of the US Coast Guard's HU-25 Guardian medium range search-and-rescue aircraft.  The two most significant prior examples of non-American aircraft procurement were the Martin B-57 Canberra selected by the USAF as its new interdiction bomber in 1951 and the selection of the Hawker AV-8A Harrier which entered service with the Marine Corps in 1971. The story of the Marine Corps' evaluation and procurement of the Harrier is one that readily demonstrates the Marines' political savvy in navigating the treacherous waters of Congressional funding as well as a single-minded commitment to efficient close air support to the Marines on the ground. The predecessor of the Harrier was the Hawker-funded P.1127 Kestrel demonstrator. Two prototypes and four development aircraft were built and then followed by nine more developed P.1127 airframes which in 1963 were to be part of what was called the Kestrel Evaluation Squadron (KES). The aircraft were designated Kestrel FGA Mk1 and the KES was staffed with test pilots from the Royal Air Force, the Royal Navy, the US Navy, US Army, US Air Force, and the German Luftwaffe. Because there were three nations in the Kestrel Evaluation Squadron, it was also referred to as the Tripartite Evaluation Squadron (TES). The unit was formed in 1965 for the purpose of exploring the possibilities of a V/STOL combat aircraft. 

At the time of the KES flight program, Lt. Col. Thomas Miller was assigned to the US Marine Corps' Air Weapons Systems Requirements Branch at the headquarters. It was the job of the staff of this department to review all the latest research and development to see what sort of equipment would be useful to the Marines. Miller and a fellow officer, Lt. Col. John Metzko, had gotten hold of film footage from the British Embassy in Washington DC of the Kestrels in action. By this point, the RAF had committed to getting the Kestrel operational with a more developed aircraft called the Harrier. They had monitored the P.1127 Kestrel program despite not having any Marine pilots in the evaluation squadron and when it became clear the RAF was going to go forward with the Harrier, they immediately briefed the USMC Deputy Chief of Aviation who was none other than General Keith McCutcheon. I had written about him recently as the "Father of Modern Close Air Support" and needless to say, given General McCutcheon's background as a passionate advocate for the Marines' own close air support, he was readily on board to find out more about the Harrier. The next step was the brief the Commandant of the Corps, General Leonard F. Chapman. With the enthusiastic support of the Commandant, the Marines then set about on getting flight time on the new Harrier. The British were adamant that anyone who would be evaluating the Harrier be a qualified test pilot and working through the defense liasons at the British Embassy and Hawker Siddeley, Miller and Marine test pilot Lt. Col. Bud Baker were chosen to head to the UK. Miller's test flying experience was getting the A-4 Skyhawk and F-4 Phantom into Marine service, so he was well versed in what an aircraft had to be able to do to support the Marines on the ground. At the request of the British, the two Marines would clandestinely make 10 flights each in the Harrier and would wear civilian clothing during their stay in Britain during their evaluation. Test pilot John Farley of the Royal Aircraft Establishment worked with Miller and Baker to prepare them for their Harrier flights. It was Farley who made the first flight of the P.1127 Kestrel prototypes in 1964 and he would come to amass 19 years of experience as a Harrier test pilot. 

Gen. McCutcheon, USMC Deputy Chief of Aviation

Miller and Baker realized very quickly during their flights that the Harrier was a new breed of combat aircraft that Marines had to have. To them, it could do everything the A-4 Skyhawk could do but not need a 6,000 foot runway to do it. All it needed was a 1,000 foot strip for rolling STOL takeoffs with an increased weapon load or the deck of an amphibious assault carrier. It was clearly close air support that could not only go where the Marines were, but be readily based close to where the Marines were in action. To get their hands on the Harrier, the Marines needed funding. Not only did the Marines have to deal with the US Navy since the Marine Corps is a department of the Navy, but they weren't sure how the US aircraft industry would react to the Corps wanting a British aircraft. After briefing Commandant Chapman, they met with the Presidential Scientific Advisory Board to get their support.

Fortunately the Navy was receptive and sent over their own team to fly the Harrier as well which allowed them to compare with their earlier Kestrel flights as part of the KES. Also fortuitous for the Marines was that a Marine was in charge of the Navy's A-4 Skyhawk program, Col. Edwin Harper, and he got to fly the Harrier as well, giving him the unique perspective of comparing the Skyhawk with the Harrier. With the ready support of the Navy in 1969, the Marines now had to lobby Congress for the funding. The FY1970 budget didn't have any money for Harrier procurement, but Harper, Miller, Baker and General McCutcheon briefed the Senate Armed Services Committee anyway. McCutcheon made his pitch to the chairman, Senator Barry Goldwater, that he didn't want just a handful of Harriers and do an evaluation. That'd been done already. "We want to buy a whole slug of them and get started and have a meaningful program!" 

Rep. Mendel Rivers (D-South Carolina) crucial to the Harrier program

Though the FY1970 Department of Defense budget was set at their time of their briefing to the Senate Armed Services Committee, the support of the Presidential Scientific Advisory Board insured that supplemental funding was secured as an amendment to the FY1970 budget bill. The supplemental funding was enough to procure 12 Harrier jets at a cost of $57.6 million. But there was a catch- the money was secured via the Marines canceling procurement of 17 McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom IIs. It would be necessary to win over McDonnell Douglas. As part of getting Congressional support, the House Armed Services Committee was also briefed on the Harrier plans and the chairman of the House committee, Representative Mendel Rivers of South Carolina, would support the procurement of the 12 Harriers as long as future Harrier buys were aircraft built in the United States. Realizing that the Marines was a significant ground breaking sale into the US defense market, Hawker Siddeley immediately sent representatives to the United States to canvas the aircraft industry and find an American partner for the AV-8A Harrier program. Hawker's team met with eight aircraft manufacturers and narrowed the list down to three- Ling-Temco-Vought, Grumman, and McDonnell Douglas. Hawker felt McDonnell Douglas was the best fit given their naval aircraft experience and at the time, the A-4 Skyhawk program was starting to wind down and the AV-8A Harrier would be good transition for McDD. On 29 September, Hawker Siddeley and McDonnell Douglas signed a 15-year agreement to cooperate on the AV-8A Harrier program. In tandem with this agreement came one from Rolls Royce to team up with Pratt and Whitney on the Pegasus engine. The teams developed a plan to transition production of the Marine's AV-8A Harrier flight as well as the Pegasus engine from UK production to US production over a span of five years. With a planned buy of 114 AV-8A Harriers, it was found by Representative Mendel Rivers' staff that it was cheaper to stick with UK manufacture instead of phasing in production in the United States. During the FY1971 budget debate, discussions centered on the pros and cons of moving production to the United States and eventually Congress agreed with Mendel Rivers' analysis that there was no need to phase in production of the AV-8A in the United States. Though the agreement never resulted in US production, it did lay down the foundations for the later AV-8B Harrier II program. 

AV-8A Harriers of VMA-513, the first USMC Harrier unit

With Mendel Rivers' support now behind them, McDonnell Douglas agreed to become the engineering group responsible for product support of the AV-8A Harrier which was more than adequate compensation for the 17 canceled Phantoms. The AV-8A Harrier first entered service in 1971 at the Navy's Flight Test Center at NAS Patuxent River, Maryland while the first Harrier squadrons prepared for the transition to the AV-8A. The first operational Marine Corps squadron was VMA-513 "Flying Nightmares" which had been flying the F-4 Phantom since 1963. VMA-513 become operational with the AV-8A Harrier in May 1971 at MCAS Beaufort in Representative Mendel Rivers' home state of South Carolina. 

Source: Harrier II: Validating V/STOL by Lon O. Nordeen. Naval Institute Press, 2006, pp 23-30. Photos: Wikipedia, USMC.