The Sea Harrier fleet defence fighter aircraft, which is in service with the British Royal Navy and the Indian Navy is the current operational variant of the Harrier I. Its primary mission is to provide air defence for the navy carrier battle fleet particularly against low-flying attack aircraft armed with long range air-to-surface missiles. The design of the aircraft is optimised for air-to-air combat with secondary missions of surveillance and air-to-sea and air-to-ground attack. The FA2 is the latest version of the Sea Harrier in service with the Royal Navy. The aircraft is able to detect and destroy threats before the launch of an attack using long range weapon systems with look-down and shoot-down tactical capability.
The FA2 Harrier is fitted with a Blue Vixen pulse Doppler all-weather radar developed by Marconi Electronic Systems in Edinburgh. Blue Vixen is a low duty ratio (i.e. proportion of time durin which the radar is transmitting), multi-mode radar with over twenty major modes. The radar capability includes ground mapping and surface target detection and tracking, in addition to long- range look-up and look-down detection and tracking of aircraft. The radar interfaces to the AMRAAM missile system and provides automatic operation to reduce the pilot workload. Blue Vixen is robust against hostile electronic warfare counter measures. A weapon stores management system from Smiths Industries ensures the correct selection of weapons and the release of the weapons in the correct order. The aircraft has five weapon stations. The weapons are mounted on rail launchers supplied by Frazer-Nash Defence Systems based at Sunbury-on-Thames, LAU-106A ejection-launchers from Raytheon and LAU-7 rail launchers from Varo.
The FA2 is equipped with the AIM-120A AMRAAM (Advanced Medium Range Air-Air Missile) from Raytheon. The AIM-120A is an all weather, fire and forget air-to-air missile, equipped with an active radar seeker and high explosive warhead. The range is over 50 miles and the speed of the missile is 1.2 km per second. The AIM-9 (M and L variants) Sidewinder air-to-air missile provides the Harrier with capability for firing close range at an approaching enemy aircraft in a dog fight. The Sidewinder M and L variants have an all-aspect active optical seeker, a blast fragmentation warhead and high resistance to countermeasures. Sidewinders are manufactured by Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and General Electric. The Sea Harrier's anti-ship missile is the Sea Eagle provided by Matra Bae Dynamics (UK), a fire-and-forget sea-skimming missile with active radar homing. The Sea Eagle has a range of over 50 miles and a speed of about Mach1, or 0.3 km per second. The Sea Harrier can carry the ALARM Air Launch Anti-Radiation Missile from Matra Bae Dynamics (UK). The missile can be deployed in direct attack mode against a hostile radar target or in loiter mode where the missile is launched in the vicinity of the threat and waits for the hostile radar to emit.
The Sea Harrier's radar warning receiver is the Sky Guardian 200 from Marconi Electronic Systems. The system compares the parameters of detected radar signals with a threat library in order to identify the threat. Sea Harrier is equipped with the AN/ALE-40 chaff and flare dispenser from Tracor and Raytheon, Florida. The AN/ALE-40 is capable of launching chaff, flares and active expendable GEN-X radar decoys.
The single turbofan engine is the Rolls-Royce Pegasus Mark 104 or Mark 106 which has four rotatable cascade-type exhaust nozzles. For take-off the nozzles are initially in the fully aft position and then they are rotated partially downwards for lift off and acceleration. Viffing (vectoring in forward flight), a form of advanced combat manoeuvres developed by V/STOL pilots, is achieved by vectoring the nozzles at high speed for sudden deceleration and very tight turns.
The cockpit is equipped with a rocket-ejection seat Model Mark 10H from Martin Baker Aircraft Company based in Uxbridge. The cockpit is fitted with Head Down Displays, HDD, and a Head Up Display, HUD from Smiths Industries. Smiths Industries supply the air data computer, engine control computer, engine indicators, fuel management and gauging, the primary and secondary air data indicator, radar indicator, stores management system, and the weapon aiming and display computer. The cockpit is equipped with a Vinten display recording system for the head up and head down displays. The communications suite consist of an AD120 VHF radio from Marconi Electronic Systems and an AN/ARC-164 ARC radio from Raytheon. The identification friend or foe system is the Allied Signal AN/APX-100 MK12 or the PTR 446 IFF.
The Sea Harrier has an AD 2770 Tacan tactical air navigation system from Marconi Electronic Systems and a MADGE Microwave Airborne Digital Guidance Equipment from Thomson Thorn. The Royal Navy Sea Harrier FA2 update programme includes the fitting of a reversionary global positioning system, model IPG-100F from Rockwell-Collins (UK) Ltd. An F.95 surveillance camera is installed in the nose of the aircraft together with a cockpit voice recorder for surveillance mission evaluation.
