Intro
The AV-8B Harrier is subsonic single engine aircraft capable of VTOL and STOL, it's primarily used by the USMC where its VTOL characteristics prove useful on carriers with small runways. It first entered service in 1985 and is expected to be phased out by 2026 where it's role will be taken over by the F-35B
NOTE: IRL the plane wouldn't be able to do vertical takeoffs with this payload(instead doing a short take off) and to vertical land would need to dump fuel to lower its weight, for convenience sake and becoz cool, mine can do VTOL even with a high amount of fuel plus weapons.
But goddamn, I first started working on this plane around 1.8 years ago. Since then I've been busy with other stuff but also have rebuilt and refined parts of the plane several times, really happy to finally have this thing finished! The plane features a functional HUD, custom landing gear, canopy that can open, tapered wings with accurate(ish) airfoil, custom weapons with IRL stats and a working ejection seat.
ABOUT
Production
The first generation Harriers that entered service in the 1960s-1970's were not without flaws, the Hawker Siddeley Harrier (designated AV-8A in the US) carried lower payloads over a much more limited range than even smaller aircraft at its time.
This led to the need for an substantially improved Harrier and in 1973 a joint effort began with the USA and UK. The ambitious project titled AV-16 aimed double the aircrafts payload and effective range, this advanced Harrier would replacement the original RAF and USMC Harriers as well as the aging A-4 Skyhawk.
The UK eventually withdrew from the project in 1975 following budget constraints and the project was scrapped. Despite this the USMC still needed a substantially improved design, and a Harrier II project helmed by contractor McDonnel Douglass began.
This new project, though less ambitious substantially redesigned the current AV-8A, the many changes including: an extra hardpoint on each wing, larger air intakes, the landing gear being moved further from the wingtip, the cockpit being raised and canopy redesigned for improved visibility and a new larger supercritical wing.
The new wing was thicker, had a longer wingspan and reduced sweep, but despite this was lighter than the previous one thanks to it's use of composite materials. The AV-8B was the first combat aircraft to make extensive use of composites to drastically lower weight and they are used throughout the aircraft comprising of about 26% of it's airframe.
Lift improvement devices were also added to the underside, the new GAU-12 gunpod being split in two pods, one carrying the gun, the other 300rounds of ammunition. The reason for the shape is to capture reflected engine exhaust when in hover which provides up to 544kg's of extra lift.
Overall the AV-8B program was successful, the new plane was easier to fly thanks to a revised control scheme and featured vastly improved payload and range more than double that of it's predecessor.
Later upgrades
Later on most of the original AV-8B's were upgraded to either night attack or harrier II plus variants with the rest being pulled from service.
The badass night attack variant (featured here) differed by having a forward mounted infrared camera added to the top of its nose cone, updated cockpit equipment, an improved engine and having the ram intake(intake in front of vertical stabilizer) lengthened.
Meanwhile the Harrier II plus differed by looking a like a deranged goblin thanks to an extended nose with radar.
Controls
AG 1:
Opens canopy
AG 2:
Activates VTOL mode, this makes VTOL takeoffs and landings easier with a weak gyroscope. Slats are deployed and the fence in front of gun pod folds down.(IRL would help trap air for more lift) Going faster than 150kn/280kph/170mph deactivates these
AG 3:
Deploys airbrake
AG 4:
Extends refueling probe
AG 5-7:
For jettison
AG 8:
Toggle lights
FireGuns:
Launches the ejection seat sequence, the conopy glass will shatter and the seat will auto eject and deploy a parachute
IT'S IMPORTANT that you only press this once! If you hold down FireGuns you will break the FT code!Other weapons including the GAU-12 gun pod can be selected under air to ground or air to air
Credits
-big thanks to @Gerrit747 for letting me modify and use his: Functional FT HUD for my own
-thankyou to @edensk, @WNP78, @FairFireFight and AN2Fella for all of their help with funky trees, I tried writing code and all it did was crash the game lmao
Gallery
Specifications
General Characteristics
- Predecessor AV-8B Harrier Night Attack variant
- Created On Windows
- Wingspan 31.3ft (9.6m)
- Length 46.3ft (14.1m)
- Height 14.7ft (4.5m)
- Empty Weight 15,368lbs (6,971kg)
- Loaded Weight 26,217lbs (11,891kg)
Performance
- Power/Weight Ratio 8.743
- Wing Loading 93.7lbs/ft2 (457.5kg/m2)
- Wing Area 279.8ft2 (26.0m2)
- Drag Points 2341
Parts
- Number of Parts 1642
- Control Surfaces 5
- Performance Cost 6,148
Comments
Upvotes
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@MisterT thanks, but what are doing on an unlisted post lol
Wow ! This is pure perfection !
@Destroyerz117 lmao i was able to make a collage with MS paint and then save it and use the in-game blueprint thing
@ChrisPy yeah it's with the designer suite mod, just set your image as a blueprint and zoom in
@Destroyerz117 nvm i figured out a way
@Destroyerz117 hi how did you do your custom thumbnails im uploading smthn tomorrow and I would like all 3 custom pics
@ChrisPy no I still have the tanks, it's just now the planes weight after you drop the tanks is the accurate max takeoff weight the idea being that you can just jettison them when landing, the thing is though even with the thrust being accurate the plane still takes off very quickly even with the tanks link
You may be able to slap some harms where the tanks were or maybe some SLAM-ERs which I can make.@Destroyerz117
Ok post that one and let me take a look at it @Destroyerz117
@ChrisPy I have a version now where without the fuel tanks and about 630 gallons internal fuel it weighs the max vtol weight, with tanks it has about 1200 gallons of fuel the idea being you can dump the tanks to lose weight. Also have the engines producing an accurate combined thrust of 23500lbf.
But even with the fuel tanks still attached which should make it too heavy it can still takeoff easier than this version. idk maybe that's good enough? It has accurate weight (for the amount of fuel it's carrying), accurate empty weight, accurate thrust, top speed, wing area etc.
Idk you’re gonna need to change something. You can look at vtol loadouts from dcs look if the grim reapers have anything abt it on you tube. @Destroyerz117
@ChrisPy I'll look into making changes tmmrw, I want to find a way to have a full loadout
also iirc the empty weight is accurate it's just SP still counts the weight of the missiles, fuel tanks and gunpod
you could also do the H model maverick which weighs 462 pounds and would likely be used in a mission
also your empty weight is 2k above what it is supposed to be so you could reduce weight of the airframe to bring it down as well
@Destroyerz117 yeah taking of your bags reduces weight a lot and maybe you should consider making the mavs an A or B version to bring down the weight on those then half the explosion scale
btw come to me for FT codes im always making them. rn im making ft codes for a F-22 im making which hopefully will have automatic trim and alt hold(using Blue0Bulls old one). Also, i think its really important to make sure the weight on here is realistic. You do the harrier right or not at all lol
@Destroyerz117 just give it 70% to half of the fuel its max fuel is. that should make it better. If its already at 50-70% take off the fuel tanks or the mavs and replace it with the gun pod
@ChrisPy yeah at this weight it'd be doing a short take-off, I have it capable of VTOL rn since I'm not sure if it's a good idea or not making it fully accurate
the problem is to do a VTOL landing you'd need to lower the aircrafts weight, there's no fuel dumping in sp like you would do IRL.
I know the plane loses weight when you burn fuel but I'm not sure how that works, does the massScale of the blocks the fuel is in effect how much weight it decreases with? uploading to the site the empty weight (which lets us know how much weight you'll lose from burning all your fuel) doesn't seem to change from massScale, but then if you upload a fuel tank with 0x massScale the site gives the empty weight as being negative which can't be right? can it?
@ChrisPy I can always make this one more transparent, I don't like not having exhaust at all since I like the feedback of actually seeing that the engines are running
@ChrisPy this is the Night attack variant, performance differences between the two are negligible with the plus weighing sightly more
also, is this the 2+
@Destroyerz117 yeah exhaust trail is pretty much invis anyway
@Destroyerz117 Exhaust trail in the harrier isn't actually that bad with the SP thrust colors it would probably be best to omit them completely
max vtol takeoff weight is 20k pounds so you have to do a rolling takeoff with this weight. Bring down the fuel capacity and fix the engine fuel rate thrust and drag and it will work most realistically.
@ChrisPy yeah I know what's causing it, just trying to find an alternative the ones that I'm using are for the exhaust trail