The day i get tired of receiving information from a harrier pilot is a loooong time from now
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Wait until you hear my insurance seminar! 
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I would definitely buy a timeshare from you
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I know RAZBAM did a great job modelling INS drift in the Mirage 2000C. Maybe they were even the first to model it to that degree. Since they released the Harrier a lot later, I would be surprised if it did not incorporate the INS drift simulation.
Also, and of this I am not sure if it applies to the Harrier, but IIRC we can disable GPS in the mission editor. Either through choosing a date or explicitly. I have never done it but I recall reading something along those lines. Has anyone done this? I donāt own any GPS using aircraft so canāt check.
I am ~95% proficient in the Mirage 2000C, 80% in the A-4 and I casually fly the F-14 as well as flaming cliffs. Not to mention all the helicopters. And the upcoming Mirage F1.
I donāt have space in my head for another jet but this talk by @Deacon211 about toss bombing, ARBS and dangerous landings is making it hard to resist.
I am in love with helicopter flying because it is so difficult (especially the Mi-24), so the Harrier seems like a good match, but the amount of MFD/computer interaction that is required even without JDAM and TGP use has always put me off buying this AV-8B. Still waiting for a Harrier I.
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Well, I am biased of course but, especially if you take away the TPOD and a lot of the smart late addition weapons, the Harrier is pretty simple compared to, say, its sister, the Hornet.
Plus, itās got great night vision stuff and the VSTOL aspect is just plain funā¦for all the reasons Helos are.
It would be pretty fun to take away the GPS in DCS for a scenarioā¦it really changes the difficulty and workflow for all the bombers. Especially at low altitude. You got to keep that INS tight and roll in on the numbers, or your likely going to be bombing, nothing.
The hardest part of flying the Harrier is working that ARBS. But, when you get good, itās a heck of a lot of fun!
Definitely worth trying, though I understand about having too many airplanesā¦I have at least a five profanity minimum when going back and forth to the Hornet.
And those are made by the same company!
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I did, and I will try it again. Even the startup and unguided weapons (not sure if it was bombs or rockets) training triggered my MFD intolerance. I just really want my simulated aircraft to have separate control panels for separate systems rather than typing and browsing through a single computer interface.
But that ARBS and FLIR HUD sounds like a lot of funā¦ Perhaps I will be more forgiving of the UFC next time I trial it
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Skip the UFC and use the Armament Control Panel for all your arming needs.
One panel.
Mic drop!
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The harrier is a great module and both @komemiute and @Freak should get one ASAP. Itās zippy and fun. It looks great, sounds great and flies great. You get to do all kinds of cool stuff with it. Much of the very modern stuff such as TPOD is hella tacked on. AFAIK the harrier TPOD uses maverick wiring and tricks the machine via that interface into doing input/output with the pilot. This makes it quirky and fun imo. So you get to do it like itās the 80s by turning off GPS and not taking the latest and greatest (JDAM, boo! hiss!) and tear up the valleys dropping sticks of snakeyes like a boss. But if you want, you can be like a cut-rate hornet wannabe and do the point&zap thing with APKWS which is fun too, in a different way.
Also VTOL. Which is so much fun they made a whole game about it (VTOL VR).
But the best thing imo about the harrier is the view from the office. You sit way high and itās a nice big bubble. You can see even better than from a hog. Itās excellent.
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Just made a quick test. Unfortunately it doesnāt seem as if INS drift is simulated. Tried to cancel GPS by either not using IFA or setting the date to 1980. In neither case a waypoint would move position after 2 hours of orbiting.
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I think that is right on. Itās actually an interesting progression, for an interesting bird.
The original Harrier was fielded, despite a lot of pushback from the Navy, to act as āmobile airborne artilleryā for the Marines, who carried little enough of it on their own in keeping with their CONOPS of being light and fast.
So the Harrier was built to drop iron bombs, very well. PGMs were for the glory strikes in those days, and the Marines expected to be given few of them for the kind of fighting they did.
Iron bombs. Didnāt need to be a lot of them at once. Didnāt need to be able to carry them far. Just had to be able to be there in 10 minutes or less.
As is the way of warfare, and not entirely dissimilarly from its spiritual brother, the A-10 (the other of the last great American attack aircraft), this put the Harrier in danger of becoming obsolete. After all, Strike Eagles were āplinkingā tanks with LGBs (alaā my favorite Janeās F-15E mission) in 1991.
This dawning obsolescence was the impetus for both the TPOD and the Harrier II Plus program.
In another of those odd turns of events, the Harrier actually got the TPOD first in the Marines, likely because the Hornet already had a targeting pod, albeit perhaps not quite as good as the Litening, from what Iāve heard.
Thus, the Harrier was much sought after, not only for CAS, but even as a FAC(A) in the early 2000s
So, for a short period of time, the Hornet was a cut rate Harrier!
But, adding a capability to an existing platform is never easy. In the Harrierās case, it was indeed necessary to jury rig the jetās existing architecture to get it to do what it had never been designed to do in the first place.
Thatās why you see the Harrier carrying āGoofy tanksā with the TPOD and a counterweight store on the inboard and the externals located farther away from the CG than would normally be desirable until the wiring could be added to hang the pod from the belly station.
Harrier II: Validating VSTOL by Lon O. Nordeen is an interesting and brief take on the development of the second gen Harrier. And while it has a hint of the cheerleader to it, I donāt think it invents anything from whole cloth. It also has some great perspectives from those who were there to fight the good fight for the Jumpjet.
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To continue with the early AV-8B theme, I think these skins are a must:
I think they are from this skin pack: DCS_AV-8B_USMC_VMAT-203 / VMA-231 / VMA-214 / VX-5_Skin Pack
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Perhaps orbiting for an hour does not make the INS drift as badly as vigorous valley flying? Does that figure, or is INS drift purely a function of time since fix?
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I think even airliners had something like a 1 NM/h drift rate. Hard maneuvering probably makes this a lot worse.
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Thanks for doing the test @MBot . Too bad INS drift isnāt modelled. In the Mirage I would see small deviations appear starting from about 20 minutes into the flight.
I hope Razbam finishes the Harrier as well as they did the Mirage, that thing is crazy detailed now, even having to deconflict radar channels with ypur wingman and all. It should not be too difficult to add INS drift to the Harrier kn comparison.
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What? I see Iām going to have to take you to the woodshed. 
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Iām not 100% certain, and unfortunately canāt check since Iām out on the road, but IIRC the Harrier has some additional options regarding the INS in the special settings menu. Anything concerning drift simulation?
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Wonderful explanation, all in pilot speak! Thanks for taking the time to make it.
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For practice with the Harrierās systems I recommend the Apache Hunting Ground mission. Once I did a few of those, adding UTM coords, finding targets, and blasting them started to become second nature. It definitely has its own logic, but Iām finding it to be way more straightforward than the Hornetās sensor/weapon management.
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Iād really like to try AHG. I donāt currently have Syria, but it sounds like a fantastic open ended place to practice!
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Thatās great stuff. Good information in this thread. I highly recommend deephackās AV8B playlist. Those are the best video tutorials I have found:
I also have a question for you @Deacon211 : Compared to other DCS modules Betty seems to be ābotchingā constantly. Even during a cold start you seem to have to hover one hand over the master caution reset button all the time. Do you remember if this was a thing in the real jet and how did you handle it?
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