This is an image of a USMC Harrier from the Naval Air Museum in Pensacola. I met the Kestrel and two variations of the Harrier in 1969. After a flurry of activity on V/STOL both military and civil it seemed that helicopters won-- until New York Airways crashed a tandem rotor Piasecki on the Pan Am building and Los Angeles Airways crashed a big Sikorskiy in a field near Compton. The Northeast Corridor study did not lead to a replacement for the subsidized DC-3 operations. CAB-41 was no more. The British were ready to proceed to adopt the Harrier if only enough could be built to justify the R & D already spent. Are you waiting for the other foot to fall? OK, ski jump!! At 24,500 pounds a Harrier could match a Skyhawk payload and range the same weight. But--it's vertical take off limit was about 18,100 pounds with a Peggy 23 ( was it 23 or 21?). I looked at what the latest briefing charts showed. The Harrier has fuel in cheek fuel tanks. Ooooh-needs a lot of reticulated foam for small arms survivability. Leave that chart out. Has 30mm Aden guns that pretty much use up the available VTOL payload when they are fitted. What is the effectiveness of the Aden compared to the DEFA and the Oerlikon? Is it as reliable as an M-61 of modern Gatling design? Most of this stuff would later appear in the A-X or for you now, the A-10. Monday morning dawned in Washington, DC and my charts were with the briefers going to congress. Was I still happy when the AIM-9L had been combined with the Harrier and the Falklands were at stake as 1980 turned to 1981? Those rascal VX-5 test pilots had reported from China Lake that they were making "square turns."