Nalls Aviation - Home of the Sea Harrier

‘Jump jet’ gets drafted for civilian flying duty

Former Marine flies his own ‘hot rod’ Harrier

By Matt Thurber
AINonline
Saturday, March 1, 2008

But organizations such as the CAF and individual owners fly complicated old airplanes safely every day. A B-17, Nalls said, is extremely complicated and maintenance-intensive. Nalls used to own a Yak-3 powered by an Allison V12 piston engine, and he found that during every flight he was just waiting for another 60-year-old part to break. By contrast, his L-39 “is the closest you can get to a maintenance-free airplane.”

Nalls, who used to be a Harrier maintenance officer, knows that the Harrier won’t be as maintenance-free as his L-39, but he predicts it shouldn’t be as bad as a WWII bomber. Jet engines, he said, are simple, consisting of “a steel tube, a shaft, 10,000 razor blades all spinning in the same direction with a fire in the middle.” Not much maintenance is needed if air and fuel flows properly into the engine and no birds and debris are ingested.

The way a civilian Harrier will operate enhances safety as well. The airplane is not a weapons system, so all that weight and complexity is removed; it won’t be flying low-level, high-speed missions that are easy targets for debris ingestion, and there are no corrosion problems associated with operating from ocean-going ships. Weight is reduced, the electrical load is lower, and this all helps reduce the demands placed on the engine. “It gets simpler and simpler as you go along,” Nalls said.

Nalls’ search for a decent Harrier began when he read that the British government was planning to shut down the Sea Harrier (see box on next page) program because of the high cost of maintaining the airplanes as an active weapons system. Nalls asked friends in the UK to keep their eyes open for possible purchase opportunities, and one day he got a call saying that there was an intact Sea Harrier available. The price was non-negotiable, although Nalls won’t say what it was. Not only was the Sea Harrier in impressive condition, he said, but the seller also had plenty of spares and support equipment.

After he bought the Harrier, Nalls spent six months arranging shipping and approval by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to import the former fighter-
attack aircraft into the U.S. It took him more than a year to obtain all the technical publications he needed to reassemble and maintain the Harrier, which made the overseas trip in two shipping containers. The Pegasus engine had just been overhauled and pickled and was in terrific shape. The Harrier, which had logged 1,120 total flying hours, came with complete records.