I hope Inkworm wont mind me borrowing one of his images from Hushkits site and comparing it with the best artwork I have seen of the final version of P1154 at build. You will notice Inkworm's is based on a different drawing. I think Michael Pryce pointed this out in the old P1154 thread at page 1 now of this one.
 

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Blackkite we really need harrier to answer this quest. The artwork is nice anyhow.
The 1154 was never going to replace the F6 Lightning so the RAF ones were more likely to have gone to 1127raf users or 6, 41 and 5 sqns who supported the UK Mobile Force
 

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Mrs CJ says they haven't used my drawing, so here it is:

Note - Hawker drawing office don't appear to have attached version numbers to the individual designs. The labels here are drawing numbers and I'm not prepared to be the source of a Gloster-style confusion with drawing numbers being identified as designations.

Chris
P1154_RN_Evolution.png
 
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So were there any common components between the variants? Rear Fuselage looks promising.
 
I wish they had used it, first time I've seen a comparison of the various studies like this.
 
Color shows design date?
RAF
Red line shows the final version?
Green line shows NBMR.3 1961?
Royal Navy
Red line version has dog tooth at the wing.
Green line shows BS100 engine bicycle type undercarriage version?
Dark blue line shows 2×Spey version?
Unified type
Red line shows bicycle type undercarriage version?
Green line shows tricycle type undercarriage version?
 
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I will be buying this with great enthusiasm.
I wish there was one decent book on all aspects of the Harrier story both actual and projects
 
P1154: THE ORIGINAL HARRIER by Chris Gibson
Many see the P1154 as one of the great lost British aircraft, but it helped pioneer international collaboration
Link: https://aeroplanemonthly.keypublishing.com/the-magazine/view-issue/?issueID=8149
Thought this was the original Harrier . . . :p :D o_O

View attachment 627297

Hawker Harrier, 1925. Source :- https://www.baesystems.com/en/heritage/hawker-harrier

cheers,
Robin.

I often wondered where Hawker got the Harrier name from,
 
Thought this was the original Harrier . . . :p :D o_O

View attachment 627297

I thought this:

1800


;)
 
Chris
The article as ever is very good. I will add it to my collection as I have just purchased the mag.
As usual it raises more questions. You mention design variants of the P1154 as it evolved. We really do need a book on P1154 which does what the TSR2 book by Damien Burke did for that plane. Harrier has many commitments and cannot be persuaded. Tim Mclelland's volume is the fullest I know of.
 
You can't beat a catchy title. I would have preferred something more esoteric, as usual.

I was quite surprised by the background to the P.1154 and aside from the supersonic bit the Harrier turned out to be a rather good alternative for dropping bombs on things. It saw off the Cheyenne!

Harriers.jpg
Other Harriers that probably predate 1925 if you're being pedantic. (Not these ones, obviously)

Chris
 
Perhaps I can get my copy of this mag by Amaozn.co.jp.Can't wait.:)
And near future I can get a hard cover book for..............;)
 
I got AEROPLANE MONTHLY MAR 2020.
Highly recommend mag. And I look forward......:)
 
One thing about the P.1154 that confuses me most of all is the small matter of the Plenum Chamber Burning, how would it have worked and more importantly how would it have compared trust wise to standard After-burning. :confused:
 
 
Everything that needs to be written about P1154 is dispersed on this site in various threads. Type Harrier into the search engine under Member and you will not go far wrong.
 
Why was plenum burning not used in the Harrier?
 
That's out? Nice. I got lashings and lashings of help from Mike Pryce and Chris Farara, for which I am grateful.
Have they used my P.1154 evolution drawing?

Chris
Very good read Chris-thanks for putting together and getting it published.

Enjoy the Day! Mark
 
Why was plenum burning not used in the Harrier?

I suspect that was because the PCB experiments showed fundamental problems with PCB (massive ground erosion).

That was what eventually killed of the Naval version of the P.1154, the Royal Navy eventually went for the F-4 Phantom for the conventional aircraft carriers. Then the RAF quickly followed.
 
The RAF eventually got a rather good Hunter replacement in the form of the Jaguar,which served in the three UK squadrons allocated to ground attack in support of NATO in the Cold War and afterwards in the GulfWar. The P1127 RAF was not as popular with theRAF as its supporters wanted. As late as 2010 it choses to keep Tornados rather than Harriers. In 1965 it wanted more F4s instead of them.
 
Plenum chamber burning was not a done deal, along with its trench digging capability, you need to produce/maintain a very precise thrust balance between the left and right chambers, there’s a bunch more things that have to happen within the system to maintain a safe flying condition, within the engine, all three combustion locations must not interfer with each other, a problem with one must be managed while maintaining a level of thrust and so on. Hence it’s a order of magnitude more cost/difficultly to enable supersonic and the end user concluded that supersonic wasn’t that important. Essentially Harrier key intended role was delivering a tactical bucket of instant sunshine after NATO had no more runways left;- high subsonic and low level was good enough.
 
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Screwing P.1154 and salvaging P.1127 out of it was probably the right move - considering state of the art and British shape as of 1965.
Reading Tony Butler books one can see how the P.1154 was gradually refined up to P.1185 and P.1205 (from memory) until they ran into a brick wall.
They couldn't prevent the rear fuselage from falling appart, shaken and pressured by the PCB brute vibrations on each sides.
Then they split the rear fuselage into two booms, P-38 style, and blended the two side nozzles into a single one. Eureka ! After some twists and turns, was born the P.1216. The real, BIG missed opportunity. Particularly with Falklands and ASTOVL screaming for the aircraft to be build - to no avail.
 
I went to a great lecture given by the legend that was John Farley. He talked about flying the P1127 and commented that his “personal objective was to return it back to the flight shed at the end of each day without having broken the thing in two”;- what they were doing came across as being finely balanced the technical cusp of the possible.

So I asked should they have given him the more complex P1154 was he confident he would have still been able to achieve his personal objective. He replied that the increase in thrust to weight was very welcome but the complexity was not. He ended with “Challenging, yeah seriously Challenging”
 

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