AV-8AORDNANCE
Given its role as a daylight-only close
air support (CAS) platform, the AV-8A
carried almost all types of unguided
air-to-ground ordnance in Marine
Corps stocks in the 1970s and early
‘80s. Its arsenal consisted of primarily
dumb bombs — Mk82 500lb bombs,
Zuni rockets, 2.75in rockets, and on
occasion 1,000lb bombs. ‘But really
our bread and butter, since we liked to
get up closer to the troops, were Mk81
250lb bombs and the Mk82s,’ explains
Joe Anderson. ‘We also dropped a
lot of napalm, which never seemed
signiicant in terms of killing power,
but it breaks up ground attacks. It has
a psychological efect. If you want to
break up an attack that’s under way,
you start laying down napalm and
things change.’
Marine AV-8As also carried the
same ADEN Mk4 30mm cannon that
equipped the Royal Air Force’s Harriers.
Carried as a pair in two detachable,
self-contained pods on either side of
the centerline of the Harrier’s belly,
the ADEN had a rate of ire of 1,200
rounds per minute and carried 100
rounds per gun. Though accurate
and reliable, the ADEN was anotherlogistical liability for the marines, as the
AV-8A was the only aircraft throughout
the entire Department of Defense that
used the cannon or the speciic 30mm
ammunition it was chambered for. This
required a sustained dependence on
UK supply lines to keep the guns fed.
The AV-8A carried the AIM-9
Sidewinder infra-red-homing air-to-air
missile. While never intended as a front-
line counter-air platform, this was an
important defensive capability. During
the period when VMA-513 was carrying
out developmental and operational test
functions for the Harrier community,
live AIM-9 shoots were not uncommon.
‘We did missile shoots because we
acted as both development and
operational testers for the Department
of the Navy,’ Harry Blot remembers. ‘We
started with the AIM-9B and I think we
inished with the H.’Harrier operations were employed —
at-sea basing as part of an MEU’s aviation
combat element, lexible forward basing
and use of forward arming and refueling
points, conventional operations from full-
sized airields — even the ‘Harrier carrier’
concept was put into action. All of these
operational concepts had been validated
30 years earlier in the AV-8A by marines
like Harry Blot, Joe Anderson, Russ
Stromberg, and Bill Spicer, and have been
carried over into the operating concepts
for the F-35B.For many of the Marine Corps V/STOL
pioneers like Blot, the introduction of
the F-35B is the realization of Gen Pate’s
1957 edict. Looking back on the road
leading from the AV-8A to the F-35B,
Blot relected, ‘The goal was to get a
mainstream airplane. Having a unique
airplane meant you were always ighting
the supply system. But having an
airplane that’s a part of a family like the
F-35B solves that. We’re at the end of the
trail. We’ve inally got where we wanted
to go.’‘We knew the AV-8A wasn’t the ultimate
Harrier as far as the Marine Corps was
concerned.’
The experience of the AV-8A pilots
greatly inluenced the development of
what became that ‘ultimate Harrier’ — the
AV-8B, which eventually replaced the A-4
in all Marine VMA squadrons. Many of
the design requirements for the AV-8B
came directly from lessons learned with
the A-model. Russ Stromberg gave one
example. ‘We proved out a lot of things in
the AV-8A program. What did we need for
a forward base? We found out that 1,500ft
of Marston matting would give an AV-8A
a full take-of roll while fully loaded with
ordnance. That became a standard Marine
Corps expeditionary airield for [V/STOL]
airplanes. When we built the B-model, that
was one of the specs — it had to be able
to operate out of that.’
Joe Anderson, who also had a hand in
the development of the AV-8B, concludes,
‘Everything we did with the AV-8B was
to improve the performance and lying
qualities of the AV-8A. Performance
was increased dramatically with the
super-critical wing and the additional
hardpoints, bringing the outriggers in a
little bit, and the stability augmentation
system in the AV-8B. That was all designed
to correct for the lying qualities defects
that led to the loss of a lot of Harriers.’
The AV-8B has seen combat in Operation
‘Desert Storm’, two NATO air campaigns
in the Balkans, Operation ‘Enduring
Freedom’ in Afghanistan, various phases
of Operation ‘Iraqi Freedom’, the ‘Odyssey
Dawn’ campaign over Libya, and ‘Inherent
Resolve’ operations against so-called
Islamic State, as well as participation in
counter-piracy operations in the Indian
Ocean. In every case, multiple facets of
Right: Ordnance
marines with
VMA-513 use
‘hernia bars’ to
manually load
a Mk82 500lb
fin-retarded
bomb onto a
‘Nightmares’
AV-8A.
Below right: This
close-up of the
ADEN 30mm
cannon pods on
an AV-8C reveals
the ventral lift
improvement
devices — thin,
outward-canted
strakes — that
were one of the
most obvious
outward
differences
between the A
and C-model
Harriers.
Joe Copalmanhttp://www.combataircraft.netwww.combataircraft.net //// December 2018December 2018 75