Originally Posted by
atpcliff
Hi!
When the Harriers are at sea, they do a rolling takeoff, and then they, virtually, ALWAYS land vertically at the end of their missions.
cliff
ABQ
That's correct, but if you ask an average Harrier pilot what percentage of his landings are at the boat versus land based, the answer would probably be somewhere on the order of 20% or less. Most guys complain that when they are on the boat they only fly about every 13 days to stay current because it is such a pain to move the helo's out of the way for them to fly on a more regular basis than that. The majority of their flight time will occur stateside or once they are at a forward deployed location.