British Aerospace Sea Harrier British Aerospace Sea Harrier The British Aerospace Sea Harrier is a naval short take-off and vertical landing/vertical take-off and landing jet fighter, reconnaissance and attack aircraft; the second member of the Harrier Jump Jet family developed. It first entered service with the Royal Navy in April 1980 as the Sea Harrier FRS1 and became informally known as the ""Shar"". Unusual in an era in which most naval and land-based air superiority fighters were large and supersonic, the principal role of the subsonic Sea Harrier was to provide air defence for Royal Navy task groups centred around the aircraft carriers. The
Hawker Heron Hawker Heron The Hawker Heron was the first fighter aircraft designed at Hawker Aircraft with a basically metal structure. Sydney Camm was the chief designer that introduced what became the typical structure for all Hawker aircraft until the introduction of the jet-powered Hawker P.1040. This structure consisted of metal tubes (steel or aluminium) with their ends swaged so that they could be connected to each other by means of "fishplates" and bolts (sometimes with ferrules to protect the tubes). The design was produced in 1924 as a private venture version of the Hawker Woodcock fighter with the wooden structure of