In keeping with Throw Back Thursday, here’s another photo and the story behind it, to illustrate how we got to fly the World’s Only Civilian-owned and flown Harrier.
Former Marine test pilot Art Nalls with the surplus Royal Navy FA2 Sea Harrier he has just bought from aircraft broker Richard Everett. Nalls will ship the aircraft to the US where he put it on the airshow circuit.
This is just after we completed the deal with Everett Aero to purchase the Sea Harrier, late 2005. You can see that it was basically complete airplane. In fact, the Everetts guaranteed they could get the parts necessary to fly the airplane, if anything were not up to FAA standards, and any spares or support equipment. We needed jacks, trestles, a tow bar, and drop tanks, all supplied by the Everetts.
This was the very beginning of many months of long, hard work to get the airplane shipped, assembled, checked and modified to fly as a civilian warbird in the U.S.
The FA-2 Sea Harrier as it arrived in Georgetown, DE. 2006
You can also see that the airplane was in excellent condition. It had just been painted and the engine had 2.3 hours on it. 2.3 hours is actually BETTER than zero hours, since the airplane had completed a post-maintenance check flight, prior to being surplused by the MoD.