On October 21, 1960, Hawker’s chief test pilot, Bill Bedford, climbed into the cockpit of the prototype and started the engine. With cameras grinding away, the odd-looking aircraft – loosely tethered to the ground by cables – rose slightly, bounced slightly a few times and then hovered momentarily with its nose moving right and left as Bedford tested the controls. No one had ever flown such a machine before and the control inputs would be different than any other aircraft. Bedford had to learn in the cockpit. A few seconds later, the machine bounced to the ground, its first flight completed.

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With an even more powerful engine, the second prototype – designated XP-836 – entered the test program and managed to switch from hover to forward flight and back to hover. The airplane now had proven the viability of the single engine with vectored thrust, and it was time to explore the flight envelope.

In 1962, the aircraft was christened Kestrel after the European falcon that can hover as it hunts. Testing continued and each flight proved that this was a machine that could indeed fill the gap between helicopters and jet fighters. But the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Royal Navy were less than enthusiastic. They were more interested in supersonic aircraft and were not as impressed by the Kestrel as were other North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces that early on could see the advantages of V/STOL.

With funding provided by a NATO group called the Neutral Weapons Development Program – primarily funded by U.S. dollars – a tripartite evaluation squadron consisting of officers from the United States, West Germany and the United Kingdom was formed to test the operational feasibility of the new aircraft. Nine Kestrels and 10 pilots were assigned to the squadron based at RAF West Rainham in Norfolk, England. The first official day of operations was April 1, 1965. The program got off to a bad start when on that day a U.S. Army pilot crashed the newest of the Kestrels, a plane only one month off the assembly line. But over the next nine months more than 900 sorties were flown, and the program was considered a resounding success.

Despite the early accomplishments of the Kestrel, the RAF and the Royal Navy still showed little enthusiasm for it and persisted in their efforts to acquire a supersonic aircraft. Hawker began working on the P-1154, a supersonic derivation of Kestrel to be known as the Harrier (after a large hovering falcon). Built in October 1964, the Harrier, along with two other aircraft projects, fell victim to budget cutting by the government and was cancelled.

Emerging from this cancellation was a new aircraft that used knowledge gained from the Kestrel tests and the P-1154 design. Retaining the name Harrier, this design emerged from the drawing board with a more powerful engine of 19,000 pounds thrust, larger intakes and improved wing and tail. It also contained a unique inertial navigation system that could put a pilot precisely cover a target at both high altitude and treetop level. This new Harrier became the GR-1, for Ground attack and Reconnaissance.

When the first Harriers became operational with the Royal Navy, it quickly became apparent that the Harrier required much less flight deck than that found on the full-size aircraft carriers that currently launched the Sea Vixen, the Buccaneer and the F-4 Phantom. Those heavy turbojet aircraft depended upon steam catapults to achieve sufficient speed to become airborne, and upon arresting cables to stop them in a short distance on landing. The Harrier needed neither. The GR-1 could simply make an approach, slow to a hover, and then gently land on any spot large enough to contain it. That did impress the Royal Navy.

And the timing of Harrier’s arrival for duty with the fleet was fortuitous. Britain was facing great economic problems at home and expenditures for both new items of military hardware and for expenses in maintenance and operations of equipment already in inventory were being cut drastically. The large aircraft carriers, being the most expensive ships to operate and maintain, were among the first to go. With them went the Royal Navy’s heavy fixed-wing aircraft. The Harrier quickly became the mainstay fighter and attack aircraft of the fleet; it drew international attention with its capabilities. Even the U.S. Marines and Spanish navy adopted the Harrier (the Spanish renaming theirs Matador).

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