16/07/2026
If it was good enough for Bond, James Bond…
They finally let me loose with a AV-8B Harrier II from the U.S Marine Corps…
…some may say that can’t be, that’s ridiculous….others may say it might be true ! It was pretty awesome arming the weapons system and taking the gun safety off on the joy stick! The British Harrier from the first Gr1 for our very own RAF to the USA, Spain and Italy who still fly them! (((🇬🇧)))✨🛠️⚙️🔧🔩
THX©️ & Dolby Atmos©️encoded 4 🎧
The connection…
Obtaining some interesting info from Gilean at Brooklands Aviation Museum…
The the central round magnified monitor and Navigation screen used in the Harrier Jump Jet cockpit was downsized, the magnifier removed and hot-wired in to the and the great late as used this kit to track . As OO7 drives his beautiful Silver Birch DB5 bristling with Q’s best espionage tools on board, he can hear the soothing beep beep of the Rolls Royce showing up on his tracking screen whilst admiring the enchanting Swiss Alps back in 1964. Things go a little hectic with the Tilly Masterson encounter, but soon the slow calm “beep beep” of the location device reminds of his ultimate mission…
It was noted that when John F Kennedy read ’s novel “ ”long before a script existed, that he/America wanted this mythical make believe British navigation and tracking device, tricky as it never existed in 1959.
This may have laid the groundwork for Britain to develop this onboard RAF Aircraft Navigation system that could also be a “tracking device” in a James Bond car. That must eventually have given birth to the Navstar/GPS satellite Aircraft GPS systems developed by the 1980’s. Kennedy would have been most pleased and impressed…
(film)
A trainer variant of is used to evacuate General Koskov after his defection to the west.
Win, Lose or Die…(book)
The is featured in two major occasions in this story.
Early in the novel, Bond goes to train at on how to fly a Harrier, alongside with Royal Navy recruits. However, in his first sortie, an BAST assassin in a Royal Navy Sea Harrier tries to shoot down Bond's Harrier.
Later, when Bond is forced to escape the , after BAST has taken over and escaping the prison cells, Bond boards a Sea Harrier again. This time, he ends in a dogfight with the very same Harrier that attacked him at RNAS Yeovilton.
Agent Under Fire…(book)
A trainer variant of unspecified appears at the tail end of the game, appearing first at the second-to-last mission, "Mediterranean Crisis". In that mission, there is a quick glimpse of it at the start, and around midway point, the player can make Bond use the Q-Remote to make it start and cause its jet ignition to blast the enemies away, giving a Bond Moment. At the end of the mission, one is commandeered by Zoe Nightshade, who takes Bond to Malprave Industries HQ, in Switzerland for the final mission.
The final mission, "Evil Summit", begins with Zoe dropping off Bond at Malprave Industries HQ. Zoe returns with the Harrier to save Bond, when he is forced to take a leap of faith from the exploding building.
Behind the Scenes…
The Hawker Siddeley Harrier that was featured in The Living Daylights movie was built in 1983 as c/n 212034 and delivered to the RAF on 18 May that year, ZB602 served as aircraft Y of 233OCU.
On 16 September 2002, the aircraft was passed to the Indian Navy as IN655.
Trivia…
Harrier Jets were at one point planned to appear in the Unmade 17th/Dalton's Third Bond film. Particularly in the July 1990 draft where a aircraft carrier - shielded by a wing of Harrier Jets - is conducting patrol in the South China Sea, when suddenly one of the Harriers starts to "act on its own" (its actually work of microchips created by villain Sir Henry Lee-Ching, installed by Bond girl Connie Webb), ejecting the pilot and then flying on its own and crashing to a populated area in mainland China. In a prior script revision (I.E. May 1990), this "microchip hijack" occurred with a robotic apparatus at a Scottish chemical plant.
MEANWHILE BACK TO REALITY…
🇺🇸"CARIBBEAN SEA – U.S. Marine Corps AV-8B Harrier II with Marine Medium Tiltrotor (VMM) Squadron 263 (Reinforced), 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable), lands on the U.S. Navy Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima (LHD 7), after conducting a live-fire ordinance exercise while underway in the Caribbean Sea.” Summer 2025
🇬🇧 The jet that didn’t need a runway…
The Harrier is the aircraft that made vertical take-off, hovering and rolling-vertical landing a battlefield reality.
It grew from the Hawker P.1127, designed around the Bristol Siddeley Pegasus vectored-thrust turbofan — a single engine whose four nozzles swivel from aft to straight down. The prototype made its first tethered hover on 21 October 1960 and its first conventional flight in March 1961, and by later that year could transition fully between hover and wingborne flight.
After the supersonic P.1154 was cancelled, the RAF took a developed subsonic version: the Harrier GR.1 entered service on 1 April 1969 as the first fixed-wing combat aircraft able to operate independently of runways.
The Royal Navy’s Sea Harrier FRS.1 followed in 1980, and the US Marine Corps bought the type as the AV-8A. Britain, America, India, Spain and Italy all flew Harriers of one generation or another.
Its legendary status was sealed in the 1982 Falklands War, where 28 subsonic Sea Harriers defended the 8,000 miles from home against faster Argentine jets — and destroyed roughly 20–23 aircraft for no air-to-air losses. The concept outlived the aircraft: every lesson of Harrier V/STOL fed directly into today’s F-35B.
