WAR PORN FOR 'MURRIKA! KILLKILLKILL!!!
Wouldn’t be GOD’S day without it.
A colleague commented that if he was going to be in a landing without gear, stools would be involved there too.
i get it. stools as in poop.
How often does the nose gear sticking happen that they have a special stool for it? Do they have special stools for the other wheels?
I was going to say he has balls of steel, but that’s kind of underselling it. More like balls of diamond embedded in titanium wrapped in carbon fiber dipped in neutron star compressed kryptonite.
I’d like to see the list of other specialized emergency equipment they have. Either they are amazingly well prepared, or the plane has a known issue with the landing gear. I suspect the later. War is a workaround.
Reminds me of this little gem:
Looks to me like something that would be used during maintenance as well. Sort of like axle-stands for a Harrier.
Outside of the imperalist context the military is a huge source of audacious machines and gadgets, from aircraft carriers, to STOVL aircraft, supersonic fighters, nuclear explosives, and satellite communications. The US military is a huge source of geek porn even if it is hobbling the economy. I cant imagine a harrier existing in the civillian world considering the fuel expenditure for a vertical landing.
There was a FRS-1 airframe purchased surplus from the Royal Navy by an ex-US Marine AV-8A pilot/dot-com millionaire I think he only ever did conventional takeoff and landings considering a vertical landing probably dumps tens of thousands of dollars in one landing.
Maybe I’m jaded, but… what’s the big deal? Had the stool not been there, another few feet for the nose to drop? The jet would no doubt have been damaged, but… it didn’t really look life threatening, or all that difficult (considering all the technology on the thing, and its ability to do pinpoint landings. Not saying I could do it–just didn’t seem crazy dangerous or crazy difficult or crazy lucky. Of course I’m proud when I parallel park my Hyundai without killing anyone so what do I know.
The plane bounced quite a bit just to the stool. If it hadn’t been there, at the very least, the contact with the deck would have stressed the airframe in invisible ways, requiring a trip back to shore to the manufacturer’s for a close examination.
A bend would have meant expensive repairs, and if anything broke off there’d be a danger of it being sucked into the engine, which could mean junking the whole thing, or worst case, an engine fragment cutting a fuel line and a fire.
When things go wrong, it’s a good idea to try and stop them getting wronger.
My neighbor tried using the “put the nose on the stool” maneuver when his dog was being house trained, I always thought it was cruel.
Darum muß freigesprochen werden Billy Mahoney …
You’re annoying.
I’ve always liked the Harrier’s design. I remember putting a model of it together. It has some weaknesses, but it is still a neat machine.
I read about this happening another time and they used a stack of mattresses for the pilot to land the nose on. Which might have worked had the plane not sucked them up into the engine.
http://chivethebrigade.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/harrier-jet-1.jpg
I would think millions of dollars in repairs, perhaps the plane would be entirely wrecked, and some chance of the pilot being killed or injured, say if the engines happen to suck up something that breaks off.
But presumably they thought this whole stool operation was not more dangerous than ejecting or they just would have had him do that.
Sheesh. Not saying they shouldn’t have done it–I know it saved the plane being damaged.
Just not that interesting or exciting to watch, or particularly impressive (beyond the intrinsic impressiveness of the Harrier itself).
Yeah, you’re jaded. 
The carrier deck could’ve been severely damaged thereby putting the carrier and all its aircraft out of action until it could steam to a a shipyard and get repaired.
I found it interesting and exciting, just in the fact that he made it look so easy.
