"Dave" wrote in message
...
IIRC, There was a specific non-combat maneuver which, when removed from
the
pilot's repertoire, cut the accident rate in half, for both models. It was
called, among other names, "bow to the crowd". It was done in a hover, and
was a tip the nose down and return maneuver that accentuated some
instability
in the hover, and caused several crashes over the years.

YMMV.

Dave in Sandy Eggo


AIUI; the 'harrier' a/c balances itself on four 'legs' of thrust; two from
the front of the engine and two from the back of the engine. The front
thrust legs are cold air while the rear thrust legs are hot exhaust gases.
The 'hover' methodology works fine when the a/c is 'horizontal' ; pitch and
roll axes = zero; but is prone to the phenomena of 'hot gas re-ingestion'
when the pitch is positive as the rearward hot plumes may be reflected up
and the engine ingests hot air into the compressors - leading to lack of
thrust and lift becoming less than weight. Early models (GR1/AV8A/Matador)
had an analogue JPT gauge where the tell-tale rise in JPT -indicating to
the pilot that hot gases were being ingested and thrust was about to
diminish - was a mere needles width (and almost impossible , given the
pilot's workload, to detect)

A very early 'mod' into USMC service was to replace these gauges with a
'Digital JPT Gauge - in this case the term 'digital' actually meant a
'odometer style ' set of digit wheels- this made it much easier for the
pilot to notice that hot gas re-ingestion was occurring and gave advance
warning permitting him to adapt the pitch angle prior to losing thrust.

The later a/c incorporated a 'Stability Augmentation System' which has finer
control of the pitch. roll, yaw axes thrusters than a 'mere' human -not that
any pilot will admit to that .

--

Brian