These Model Airplane are 16 inches in length and finely handcrafted, and hand painted by our artists - to scale and museum quality. The Harrier today is one of the truly unique and most widely known of military aircraft. It is unique as the only fixed wing V/STOL aircraft in the free world. It also is unusual in the international nature of its development, which brought the design from the first British P.1127 prototype to the AV-8B Harrier II of today.
When the Harrier II was first flown in the fall of 1981, 21 years had elapsed since the original Hawker P.1127 first hovered in untethered flight. This basic design, only one of many promising concepts of the time, has weathered its growing up period and reached maturity in the AV-8B.
Another key element in the Harrier concept is the method for controlling the Model Aircraft. When operated as a conventional airplane, the usual ailerons, rudder, and horizontal tail are used to generate aerodynamic control moments about the roll, yaw, and pitch axes, respectively. In hovering flight and at low forward speeds, however, the aerodynamic controls are ineffective, and reaction jets are used to provide the necessary control moments.
At intermediate speeds, both reaction jets and aerodynamic controls are used. Pitch jets are located at the nose and tail of the fuselage, a roll jet is at each wingtip, and a yaw jet is located behind the tail. The reaction jets utilize compressed air from the high-pressure engine compressor and respond in a proportional fashion to conventional movements of the control stick and rudder pedals. The control jets come into operation automatically when the thrust-vectoring nozzles are rotated to any angle in excess of 20°. Control of the thrust-vectoring nozzles is exercised by a lever in the cockpit located alongside the throttle.
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