The Harrier Force On Exercise In West Germany. 1980s. " 10 Field Squadron RE "

During the Cold War period in the 1970s and 1980s, the RAF Harriers operated off base from sites hidden along the fringes of the forests of West Germany, ready to launch against an enemy as a reconnaissance or attack force, returning to cover to prepare for the next sortie. Its ability to take off and land independently of fixed runways, made the Harrier a force-multiplier to be reckoned with.

This video shows the harrier force on exercise in West Germany, you can see the mobile harrier airfields being built by Royal Engineers from 10 field squadron, using thousands of aluminium planks, the guys who laid the planks called it kicking tin, when the exercise was over it all had to be picked up and each plank checked for damage. Building and clearing the sites did get boring at times, but it was all worth it to see the Harriers on exercise in the fields and forests of West Germany. Sometimes if tin kickers got lucky they got to fly in the two seater T-bird Harriers. The RAF guys called this passenger ride in a Harrier a JOLLY.

http://www.sg-etuo.de/

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• cold
• war
• royal
• engineers
• 10
• field
• squadron
• kicking
• tin
• harrier
• military
• exercise
• army
• aviation
• aircraft
• germany
• west
• raf
• gutersloh
• force
• nato
• hawker
• gr3
• t4
• baor
• british
• on
• the
• rhine
• siddeley
• BAe
• no.3
• no.4
• aluminium
• planks
• platten
• air
• ubung
• hohne
• sennelager
• mandalay
• West Germany
• Western World
• Jet
• Plane
• Airplane
• Fly

[Mooseth93]

Exercises Handy Forge, Hazel Flute and Hard Frost - remember them well!

[Wonkabar007]

@Mooseth93 Thanks for that, I was trying to remember the name of the evil winter exercise, yes Hard Frost was the one, picking up those metal planks in -10 temps ouch! even some of the squadron hard nuts had tears in their eyes.

[RomelioSanzz]

So Harrier couldn't operate on not prepared fields, like this one on the grass???

[Wonkabar007]

@RomelioSanzz This type of field was used to practice flying away from the airfield, if there was a war, the Harriers would use roads and buildings nearby to fly from, to attack warsaw pact forces.

[Wonkabar007]

@RomelioSanzz Yes if it is dry and flat ground, but they don't like to do it because of debris getting sucked into the engines.

[alex471996]

DAMN Mr Cameron for scrapping our most beautiful, versitile, unbeaten and icon fighter ever. Now I have to fly crappy Typhoons (although they are amazing bits of kit)

[Wonkabar007]

@alex471996 There should be a special farewell Harrier airshow, so we can pay our respects to a awesome aircraft, but it seems they will just be grounded with no events organised.

[TheophilusPWildbeest]

Great stuff.

Call me a sentimentalist but I think the GR3 looks better than the GR7/9.

Thanks for putting this on the tube.

[franknbeans4761]

This would be awesome if the F-35B was used in the same fashion.

[crazynaska]

@alex471996

It's a shame to see them go but I heard that the USMC just bought a bunch of Harriers from the RAF just in case the F-35 gets cancelled so at least they will still be flying somewhere well into the future!

I thought the Harriers could take off straight up but I guess not as they needed a short runway as in the video. Hmmmm

[DaveWBedford]

Great video - I loved the comments on it.

[DaveWBedford]

@tomszabeast Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator?

[tomszabeast]

i loved to fly the harrier GR9 but i am now stuck with flying the hawk on 4sqn

[PMRecSardinia]

Hello! nice video. someone can tell me the name of the first song? Thanks ..

Ciao! bel video. qualcuno sa dirmi il nome del primo brano musicale? Grazie..

[RomelioSanzz]

@Wonkabar007 I imagine it's because of it's VTOL and STOL capabilities.