Ten years before, however, the P1127 was a unique capability searching for a concept of operations and in the early 1960s the majority of the air staff in the MoD were wedded to the need for a supersonic fighter and it took some time to persuade the non believers that there was real potential in a developed version of a vectored thrust combat aircraft, the P1154, particularly when compared to the Dassault Mirage 3V, project with its single engine for propulsion and its battery of eight Rolls-Royce lift engines, a concept which was promoted heavily by Derby.

Recognition must go to Sir Sydney Camm at Hawker and Sir Stanley Hooker at Bristol for their visionary recommendations to their respective Company boards to pursue this vectored thrust project. However the real credit belongs to Ralph Hooper and the late Gordon Lewis for persevering so successfully in these early years. It is sad that Gordon died before he could join this celebration of their work together and although he was a man of slight stature Gordon was a giant as an aero engineer.

Although perhaps controversial, it is fair to say that cancellation of the P1154 in 1965 was a wise move because the difficulties involved in making the Harrier a credible military fighting machine were immense.

Despite these challenges, however, the rapid progress from the primitive P1127 hovering machine of 1960 to a credible weapon of air warfare in less than ten years confirmed the talents of the team at Kingston and Dunsfold. During the pioneering days of the early 1970s men like David Scrimgeour, who had commanded the Kestrel squadron in 1965, Ken Hayr, George Black and Paddy Hine in the RAF and Harry Blot in the USMC worked tirelessly to confirm the capability of jet VSTOL, or more accurately STOVL.

The two armed forces exercised the expanding capabilities of the aircraft both ashore and afloat and we in the Harrier Mafia were convinced of the attractions of vectored thrust. Dispersed site operations were impressive and the little jet seemed to prosper in field conditions with the associated high sortie rate althby Group Captain Jock Heron

My first intimate contact with the Harrier was at Dunsfold in February 1971 when Duncan Simpson kindly gave me my first trip in T2 XW269. I was serving on a ground tour at the time and although flying in anything was a bonus, that introductory exhilarating sortie acted as a stimulus to my request to be posted to a Harrier squadron. So it came about, and that introduction by Duncan was to stand me in good stead when coincidentally XW269 was an aircraft with which I was to become very familiar as it was my squadron's trainer aircraft when I joined the Harrier Force in Germany some 18 months later. My subsequent relationship with the Bona Jet was cemented over the years both in the cockpit, mainly in Germany, and on staff duties both in London and elsewhere.

Ten years before, however, the P1127 was a unique capability searching for a concept of operations and in the early 1960s the majority of the air staff in the MoD were wedded to the need for a supersonic fighter and it took some time to persuade the non believers that there was real potential in a developed version of a vectored thrust combat aircraft, the P1154, particularly when compared to the Dassault Mirage 3V, project with its single engine for propulsion and its battery of eight Rolls-Royce lift engines, a concept which was promoted heavily by Derby.

Recognition must go to Sir Sydney Camm at Hawker and Sir Stanley Hooker at Bristol for their visionary recommendations to their respective Company boards to pursue this vectored thrust project. However the real credit belongs to Ralph Hooper and the late Gordon Lewis for persevering so successfully in these early years. It is sad that Gordon died before he could join this celebration of their work together and although he was a man of slight stature Gordon was a giant as an aero engineer.

Although perhaps controversial, it is fair to say that cancellation of the P1154 in 1965 was a wise move because the difficulties involved in making the Harrier a credible military fighting machine were immense. Despite these challenges, however, the rapid progress from the primitive P1127 hovering machine of 1960 to a credible weapon of air warfare in less than ten years confirmed the talents of the team at Kingston and Dunsfold.

During the pioneering days of the early 1970s men like David Scrimgeour, who had commanded the Kestrel squadron in 1965, Ken Hayr, George Black and Paddy Hine in the RAF and Harry Blot in the USMC worked tirelessly to confirm the capability of jet VSTOL, or more accurately STOVL.

The two armed forces exercised the expanding capabilities of the aircraft both ashore and afloat and we in the Harrier Mafia were convinced of the attractions of vectored thrust. Dispersed site operations were impressive and the little jet seemed to prosper in field conditions with the associated high sortie rate although the visiting NATO tactical evaluation team, whose standardised check lists didn't extend to operations from minor roads and farmers' fields in Germany, didn't quite appreciate the way we went about our business.
    However, it took time and effort to convince the sceptics in the MoD because when I arrived in Whitehall in 1975 after my first tour in Germany there was a subtle but quite evident bias against the Harrier. In the first seven years of squadron service we had lost some two dozen aircraft and several pilots, an unattractive record in anyone's book. The MoD's policy for the offensive air support role was to buy more Jaguars and allow the Harrier to wither within ten years.

Strong arguments by the Harrier Mafia in Whitehall together with world events led to a major change in policy in 1977 and in an attempt to persuade the sceptics of the merits of the Harrier my presentation on the improvements which we sought in the basic Harrier included the statement:
    "The Harrier today is where the helicopter was 30 years ago, limited in range and payload, and opposed by men without vision, but its unique capability points to an entirely new concept of operations for tactical aviation."

These efforts were to bear fruit and in 1977 the Jaguar Force was frozen and an additional buy of 24 Harriers was authorised. Subsequently there emerged greater interest in a much more capable version of the aircraft, the GR5. The rest is history.

The RAF's Harrier came of age when Peter Squire took his aircraft to war alongside his Sea Harrier counterparts in the Falklands where the Bona Jet performed superbly. Despite the RN's earlier opposition to the P1154, our dark blue colleagues became strong advocates of STOVL and, in addition to their well documented achievements in the South Atlantic, the Sea Harrier went on to perform well in operations in the Balkans and elsewhere.

Subsequent deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan confirmed the need both for the unique STOVL capability of the Harrier GR7/9 and the enhanced operational effectiveness of the second generation "electric jet". The MoD's recognition of the attractions of the Harrier remained to the fore until the recent regrettable and puzzling decision to withdraw the aircraft from service at the end of the year; a decision which smacks of a cost cutting exercise in the MoD rather than a proper strategic defence review. To paraphrase this: "They have acted in haste and will repent at leisure"

Despite this, those of us who were involved in its conception, design, development, flight test and service operation, either on the ground or in the cockpit, will remember with justifiable pride that we were STOVL men and that we were members of the exclusive Harrier Mafia.