Actually its JP-5 and its in the bug juice (Kool Aid). The coffee just tastes like crap all on its own. 
Back in the (first) Cold War, a Soviet Navy tattletale–usually a Krivak FFG–would sit off the stern of the carrier and, depending on where it was, sometimes made a reference point in the pattern.
…to show their “appreciation”, our brave aviators would often come back with some extra gas, and then dump it over the Soviet ship.
…I miss those halcyon days. 
Nobody is happy in the North Atlantic until everyone’s juice tastes like jet fuel…
It’s lovely how everyone came together in the mid Atlantic to feel depressed together, really shows the love in the international community!
Actually we were in the Med…but the rest of your observation holds true.
Design! 
Them Navy boys know what they are doing (and Marines!)…
Today was an interesting mission with lots of instruction on advanced maneuvering. As usual, the in-flight briefings and kneeboard content by @Baltic_Dragon were chock full of great information. On this flight we did all kinds of maneuvering from different AoA profiles to slow flight, stalls and spins, and some intermediate aerobatics designed to impart confidence in aircraft handling.
We start off with some varying AoA maneuvers that demonstrate the various turn rates that result from different speeds, AoA, and G-loading…
It is worth mentioning that these are quite a bit more forgiving than mission such as the Maple Flag Missions that closely scrutinize your performance (requiring you to hit certain speeds, altitudes, and headings to a very small tolerance) - this is much more in the vein of giving you the instructions, and trusting you to go perform them to the best of your ability…
The slow speed, high AoA, and accelerated stalls were quite fun…
I found I could perform best by finding a section of straight North/South aligned coastline to help with looking out the canopy during some of the maneuvers…
After twenty minutes or so of instruction and flying…it was back to base to ready for the next mission…
Hate to break it but, …
Under most circumstances, working around a carrier, we (the USN) use the “3-2-1” rule. Meaning that you stay farther than 3,000 yards forward of the carrier, 2,000 yards (1 Nm) abeam and 1,000 yards astern.
We took some liberties with visual references for training purposes (such as with smoke marks, structures, geographical references, and even ships); since the Harrier’s break turn ought to spit it out 0.8-1.0 NM abeam, we thought having a ship there for visual reference a nautical mile away was a good training device.
I just flew with a former Marine Harrier guy. I don’t normally mention my sim habit at work but he seemed open minded enough. It was fun and a little gratifying getting as technical as my limited depth would allow. Everything seemed to mesh with his recollection. When he asked if the sim has “that little octagon thing on the HUD” I knew I was among friend. The thing most essential to flight is the one thing that will never be simulated…fear. I have gone full-nerd with several Harrier peeps in my time and they have all stressed how truly terrifying that plane really is. Our AV8 is just too predictable. That’s not an FM criticism. I am sure it’s as nuts-on as they can make it. But it seems that the real thing is calculating 10 ways to kill you every minute—at least when the nozzles are tilted. Hearing such stories from the safety of a big winged bus makes one acknowledge that he was probably never cut out got that line of work.
Heh, DCS harrier is plenty murderous to me, let alone those flappy bird things! 
But apparently it oughta be worse… Let’s hope the weather rework will bring some cool little gusts and turbulence to fork up our harrier hovering work eh?
Why would you be shy about your “sim habit” smoke? It’s not like you don’t have plenty cool to spare, driving those overpowered bipes beyond the limit and back.
That’s really cool. I sometimes talk about sim stuff with my coworkers, but then again, we fly with the same small group of people all the time, so I know who would geek out or not. We hired a new guy a couple years ago who was an ex Navy T-34 and P-3 pilot. On one of our first flights, as we were getting to know each other, we got on the subject of the P-3 and he had all kinds of interesting stories about it. He was speaking in pretty broad terms, and I asked some sort of specific questions and at one point asked if he’d ever fired a Harpoon off one. LOL…his head tilted to the side like a dog and he asked how I knew so much military hardware stuff…haha…
Yep. Even though my job is fairly sedentary, I’ve never once pushed away from my desk with my knee jumping from adrenaline or gotten back into my car after a night of flying and sort of exhaled like “wow…I’m so glad I’m driving home”. I can imagine it is 100x that for a military helo/jet pilot and 100x that when they are shooting at you. I’m gonna need that number for Truck Masters.
…because there is always the Pause button. 
I have always wondered if I would be alive today if I had become a naval aviator. It wasn’t in the cards for me and looking back, I wouldn’t have changed a thing…and I’m alive today where as 17 of my former shipmates are not…so yeah, fear…I can understand that. 
A brief pause in the action while I attended to some vacations and other things. But ready to dive back into the Harrier training. Training Mission #11 has us examining the EHSD (Electronic Horizontal Situation Display) and waypoint navigation, TACAN navigation, offsets, and mark-points.
As usual, the tutorial was full of great information and the flow of the mission is very good with great examples…
I can see where being able to slew the TSD and create new waypoints would be valuable for “on the fly” mission execution…
Creating a waypoint and setting an inbound course using the HSI course knob…
Right on course!
Following the guidance on TACAN navigation…
Mission complete - I came, I saw, I navigated.
Good 'Tube channel for Harrier. Has some recent stuff (cira July 2021)
