Travis Theimer said former Harrier pilots can carry landing habits into the F 35b that make the newer jet accelerate and climb during approach. The Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 211 executive officer made the point while speaking aboard USS Makin Island, where many Marine aviators are making the switch.
He logged nearly 700 hours in the Harrier before moving to the F 35B. Michael Jones, the squadron’s commanding officer, said the move from Harrier flying to F-35 flying was a major change for aviators.
Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 211
The AV-8B Harrier required pilots to manage direction, engine throttle and a nozzle lever to hover the aircraft. The F 35b puts most of that work on onboard computers, which changes how pilots handle vertical landings even though both aircraft can take off and land vertically.
The Marine Corps retired its final operational Harrier squadron this year, and many former Harrier pilots have been reassigned to the F-35. That leaves experienced Harrier aviators adapting to a different landing system at the same time the service is shifting them into a jet that can do air-to-air fighting, strike enemy air defenses and share information with nearby aircraft and troops on the ground.
USS Makin Island
The Harrier was built around constant pilot corrections during hover landings and did not have an auto-throttle to control airspeed, though it did have an altitude-hold system. The F 35b’s flight-control system can maintain a hover and match the speed of a warship it is landing on, but Theimer said first approaches still catch pilots reaching for the old reflexes. “I would bet that every Harrier pilot on his first [deceleration] to the [landing] pad has gone faster and climbed over,” he said.
Jones compared the transition more simply: “They were probably riding a unicycle, and now they're transitioning to a bike,” he said. For former Harrier pilots, the practical challenge is not learning vertical landings from scratch, but dropping the instinct to fly the approach the old aircraft demanded.
