Video
Britains Obsession with Supersonic Harriers
British Aircraft ProcurementF-35BHawker Siddeley P.1154Naval AviationRoyal NavySupersonic V/STOLV/STOL Aircraft
Study Britains Obsession with Supersonic Harriers, a Dr. Alex Clarke video from 20 Jun 2025, with 17 time notes. Topics include British Aircraft Procurement, F-35B, Hawker Siddeley P.1154.
Time notes
- 0:00Why a supersonic V/STOL aircraft became so difficultChapter
The opening traces Britain's supersonic Harrier ambition to the early 1960s and explains why combining naval interception, strike, carrier recovery, and rough-field operation overloaded one design.
- 4:25P.1154, the BS100 engine, and a failed joint requirementChapter
The Hawker P.1154 paired a powerful plenum-chamber-burning engine with incompatible naval and RAF demands before cancellation in 1965.
- 5:32P.1154 was cancelled before Britain's carrier retreatNotable Point
The 1965 cancellation preceded the East of Suez withdrawal and carrier cuts, showing that service preferences and competing aircraft programs killed P.1154 before Britain's later strategic retrenchment.
- 7:41BS100 thrust promised performance at a control costNotable Point
A comparison with the Phantom's Spey engines sets the BS100's projected 33,000-pound thrust against the harder pilot-control problem it created in vertical flight.
- 9:32Naval air defense and RAF strike requirements conflictedNotable Point
The joint P.1154 failed to satisfy either a naval fleet fighter requirement or the RAF's close-support and strike priorities.
- 11:29A P.1154 fleet fighter could have reshaped InvincibleChapter
A counterfactual explores how a surviving naval P.1154 might have produced larger Invincible-class air groups and earlier Sea King airborne early warning.
- 13:34Rolling V/STOL launches for Cold War fleet defenseChapter
The Royal Navy valued V/STOL fighters for rapidly reinforcing combat air patrols without waiting for carrier catapults to reset.
- 20:31How a supersonic Harrier might have changed the Falklands baselineNotable Point
A larger counterfactual Invincible air group combines supersonic fighters, AEW Sea Kings, commando helicopters, and ASW helicopters.
- 23:09NATO pursued V/STOL to escape vulnerable fixed air basesChapter
NATO's V/STOL requirements sought to disperse jet aircraft away from predictable Cold War runways and complicate enemy targeting.
- 26:17NBMR-3 prompted a wide field of British V/STOL designsChapter
Mach 2, dispersed operations, nuclear delivery, and useful payload demands drove numerous British NBMR-3 concepts and encouraged a national V/STOL export niche.
- 28:11CVA-01 sat apart from Britain's V/STOL industrial strategyNotable Point
The conventional CATOBAR design of CVA-01 did not exploit the V/STOL niche that British government and industry hoped could produce world-class technology and export sales.
- 28:48Decades of V/STOL research became a British industrial advantageNotable Point
Long-running British V/STOL research supplied infrastructure, data, and expertise that later made the country valuable to the F-35 program.
- 30:01V/STOL funding survived governments that cut other researchNotable Point
Successive British governments repeatedly funded V/STOL studies despite wider reluctance over defense research, making the lack of a stated Tempest V/STOL element a notable exception.
- 30:53P.1213 and P.1216 carried the supersonic successor into the 1980sChapter
Hawker's P.1213/P.1216 studies explored unconventional supersonic V/STOL replacements for both Harrier and Tornado, with possible US Marine Corps use.
- 33:56P.125 and FOAS research folded into the F-35 choiceChapter
British P.125 and FOAS work combined V/STOL expertise with American stealth research before export economics favored joining the F-35 program.
- 38:45Five common V/STOL flight decks offered greater flexibilityChapter
A proposed mix of two strike carriers and three LHDs would have used common F-35B-compatible flight decks to stretch a medium power's limited ships and aircraft.
- 42:43F-35B completed a sixty-year search for a Super HarrierNotable Point
The F-35B finally united Royal Navy and RAF support behind the supersonic V/STOL replacement Britain had pursued through many earlier projects.