UPDATE 30

7/22/2010 1:04 PM

Spring has sprung, the grass has riz, I wonder where the Harrier is????

We’ve completely missed updates for the winter and spring and we’re now smack in the

middle of summer. Here’s what we’ve been into….

This winter was one of the snowiest on record. Three of the top ten snowfalls of

recorded weather happened this year and we were completely blocked from getting to

the airport, much less the hangar. The local officials were only able to clear the roads

to the liquor stores, but the airport was left untouched for quite a while. They have

their priorities.

At one point, there was a foot of solid ice blocking the hangar door with no thaw

in sight. All of this happened while we were completing our annual inspections,

plus we were under the time crunch to make it to a little event in Daytona, but the

snow forced a cancellation. Maybe next year we’ll make it to the Daytona 500.

We’ve still got a few obstacles with the Federalies before that can happen, but we’re

working on it.

When spring arrived and we were able to get the airplane out of the barn, one of

our ground runs suffered a recurring problem, of a number 2 hydraulic system failure.

We decided to take some time to go deeper into why we were having problems with

this hydraulic system. Fortunately, this is the back-up hydraulic system and not

nearly as critical as the primary system which led us to an emergency landing on our

second flight. This system provides backup to the primary flight controls only, but s

till we wanted to get it completely fixed.

Our investigation determined that we had a leaking accumulator. To spare you the

technical jargon, an accumulator stores extra hydraulic fluid and provides that hydraulic

fluid during high system demand to maintain a constant operating pressure. Ours

was allowing the charge of high-pressure nitrogen side to seep into the hydraulic fluid

and thereby become hydraulic foam. The pump won’t pump foam and therefore leads

to a system failure. While we had some time to our first event, we elected to remove

the accumulators and either source new ones or have these rebuilt.

As with nearly everything on this airplane, new ones are not available. We were

able to locate some New Old Stock, but the seals in those accumulators were of

the same relative age as our seals and could not be guaranteed at all. They were also

the price of solid gold. If you’ve ever thought about investing in gold, you may want

to consider investing in surplus Harrier parts. Consult your advisor…

Some were speculating that our accumulator failed due to internal corrosion. If that

were the case, they are not readily re-buildable. I’ve been told that no one really tries

to rebuild them. They are considered scrap, but with this airplane, nothing is truly

scrapped. We chose to at least have ours opened and examined, before we made a very

costly decision to purchase additional accumulators or not.

Fortunately, a good friend of ours owns TOBUL ACCUMULATORS and he gladly

assumed the task. Upon a detailed inspection, they were determined to be

completely re-buildable with new parts. Several weeks later, with the accumulators

rebuilt and tested, we re-installed them in the airplane and ground tested the system.

Everything was perfect. We will do this for the other system during the next extended

down time over the winter.

After a quick refresher flight and post maintenance check flight to verify all systems

were working properly, we were off to St. Louis, Missouri for the 4^th of July

“Fair St. Louis”, which was our first airshow of the season. This is a huge waterfront

event, and they’ve added an airshow to the events, after a five year absence.

St. Louis is the home of Boeing, which used to be McDonnell Douglas, the builders

of the AV-8B. They consider the Harrier a ‘hometown’ aircraft and absolutely must

have one for their airshow. We stepped up to the plate and were one of the main a

ttractions in a line-up of all star airshow performers.

St. Louis is a challenging site in front of the famous Arch, known as the gateway to

the west. The actual show box is very confined, over water, and surrounded on all

sides by obstructions. This is challenging for a Harrier demonstration. In addition,

the show site is several miles from the airport hosting the airplanes. We had to hover,

and return to the field to land, very low on fuel. This all adds to the challenge: tight

box, lots of obstacles, and having to fly to another location for landing. Goody.

Friday, the practice day went off without a hitch. The airplane was running perfectly,

and we were now confident that our fuel planning and performance calculations were

right on the money. The next two days went equally as well, until the final performance

on the 4^th of July.

Rain showers were in the area and forecast to hit the show site near the end of the show,

so several acts were cancelled and the Harrier moved into line to close the show. Just

after takeoff, I was plagued by a Hyd 2 light and zero hydraulic pressure. I was glad

we fixed it….

I cancelled the performance and landed safely. Remember, Hyd 2 is a backup system,

so there was no need to blow the gear down or land vertically. A normal landing was

sufficient.

Once back on deck, the ground crew found a fluid-covered mess of an airplane. Red

hydraulic fluid was all over the aft fuselage, in every nook and cranny, and a real mess.

We needed to clean it before we could even begin to find the source of the leak. It was

going to be a long night ahead of us.

Once we cleaned the airplane and applied pressure to the system, the source of the

failure was immediately obvious. An O-ring had been mis-installed. Even though it

checked fine and survived 6 flights, without incident. We worked until 10:30 p.m.

on the 4^th of July, alone on the airport ramp to get the parts removed.

We were very fortunate that this failure occurred when it did. Had we cancelled that

flight, because of the rain showers in the area, the failure would have occurred on the

ferry flight to Oshkosh. We would not have had our support trailer, our mechanics,

and the airplanes would have diverted to another airfield, somewhere in between

St. Louis and Oshkosh. We were fortunate, indeed, that the failure occurred when it did

and where it did.

Early the next day, we located fresh O-rings, installed them and did our functional

checks. Once everything was certified by our mechanics to be safe for flight, we

serviced the planes and headed for Oshkosh. For the first time, in recorded private

ownership history of the SHAR, we had a tailwind. By my calculations, we had nearly

70 knots of direct tailwind, so we were in Oshkosh in less than an hour.

Our support trailer arrived around midnight. We hangared both airplanes and headed

back to Washington via commercial airlines. That was a very, very long day for us.

As it stands now, both planes are up and ready to go for Oshkosh. We’re scheduled for

several performances during Airventure 2010 and the Sea Harrier will be showcased right

up front, at Aeroshell Square.

We’re sponsored by Conoco/Phillips 66 for our fuel during Airventure 2010 and we will

have their logos on the plane. We are sincerely grateful for their support and generosity.

Thank you, Conoco/Phillips.

Now, we’ve got a few days of down time, after a whirlwind couple of weeks. Then,

we’re off to Oshkosh and one of the biggest airshows in the country. We hope to see you t

here.

If you visit Oshkosh, please stop by and say hello. We’ll be right up in front.

Art Nalls