OpenHarrier

Welcome to my first blog post on OpenHarrier. First, a little bit about me and my background…

I will keep it simple and brief. I am married, have 4 kids, lots of random skills and creativity, and not a huge amount of free time. I am also a FAA licensed private pilot, although not actively flying at the moment – primarily because of the costs and time commitments involved. I am sure I will fly again, so let’s just call this “taking a break”.

I am a professional software developer by trade. Actually, these days, I am a Sr. Enterprise Architect for a Fortune 100 company. I am most skilled at designing and writing software. That said, I have developed a bunch of non-technology skills along the way. Some I am good at, and some I am mediocre at best.

I can handle basic wood working. I can weld with a flux core arc welder. I can solder. I can do 3D CAD. I can do basic electronics. I can design PCB boards. I can design circuits around microcontrollers, and write the c++ code to make them work. I can 3D print, and I can model most things on the computer and turn them into some sort of reality.

If I don’t know how to do something, I try to learn. This is a key skill. Without being able to learn, none of this would be possible.

Why the Harrier?

If you had asked me a few years ago what my favorite plane was, my answer would not have been the AV-8B Harrier. I have been interested in planes ever since I was a little kid, and have been to many, many EAA Airventure airshows. I have lots of “favorite” aircraft. Historically (no pun intended), I have been particularly fond of WWII planes, especially the Spitfire, P51D Mustang, and the B-17. In fact, although I have always thought modern jet aircraft are cool, I was never all that interested in them.

DCS, or Digital Combat Simulator, changed that for me. So did VR (virtual reality). I initially bought the Spitfire and loved casually flying it. I also bought the Mustang but did not fly that a huge amount.

One day I decided to try multi-player. At first I tried my hand at dogfights on a PvP WWII themed combat server. There was almost never anybody on, and when there was, I spent a long time flying to the action only to get picked off easily by the experienced pilots. No surprises there.

To take a break from that, I found a casual server where combat was not allowed and the focus was just flying for fun, often in formations. I met a few people and began flying with them on a regular basis. One of them happened to be Mugga, whom later started the MVP (Mugga’s Virtual Playground) servers. It was actually Mugga who introduced me to the Harrier.

But before I get into that, let’s talk about my experience expanding into the foray of modern jet aircraft. When the F-18 was released in Open Beta, I decided to buy it. Soon after, I replaced my ancient Saitek X-52 HOTAS with a Thrustmaster Warthog throttle and stick. I learned to fly the F-18 (but didn’t spend much time learning the weapons systems). When the F-14 was announced, I went ahead and pre-ordered it. How could I not? Just before the F-14 was released, I bought the Harrier from Razbam while it was on sale. I literally flew it twice and forgot about it. Up until that point I had always thought the Harrier was cool but never thought much about it. I had seen people hover it on multi-player servers and thought that was cool.

Anyway, with the F-14 out, I started trying to learn that bird inside and out. I began flying with somebody, taking turns flying front seat and back seat. We went into some PvP servers and occasionally scored kills with the finicky AIM-54 Phoenix missiles.

The F-16 came out and I bought that too, but didn’t really get into it.

I had started flying a lot with Mugga. One day he asked me if I had the Harrier module. I said I did, and we both jumped into it. He showed me a cool hover trick where he blasted off like a rocket.

After that day, I started flying the Harrier a lot on my own. I learned to hover it. I learned to start it. Stop it. Everything except weapons. Then I started flying in formations with others. Eventually I performed a Harrier solo in a virtual airshow. By now I was fully hooked!

I still had not learned to fire any munitions. So after more than a year of flying the Harrier, I started learning how to do that. Found a friend that flew real fighter jets in combat, and learned a few things from him. Later I became friends with a former USMC Harrier pilot and learned a few more things.

I bumped into a guy at one of the local parks in my town who had a flight jacket. Turned out he was a private pilot, too, and also flew combat missions on a weekly basis with a group of friends. I started flying with these guys as the only experienced “Harrier” guy in the group. The rest of them fly a variety of planes. I started getting decent at dropping “warheads on foreheads”, although there is always more to learn!

I have always been jealous of the other cockpit builders out there, and had fantasized about building my own. One day I got into some deep thinking and decided that it would be the perfect, multi-year project for me, allowing me to spend my creative energy on something that would be meaningful.

At the time, I could only find 1 harrier cockpit out there that somebody had built. I emailed the guy, but he didn’t respond. I decided if I was going to do this, I better start researching. Around the same time I decided to start OpenHarrier to share my research and files with others for free in the hopes to aid others wanting to build Harrier cockpits.

Nearly 1.5 years later, our community has grown to almost 100 people. Not all of them are building cockpits, but many are. And we have been helping each other where we can. I hope to build on this and continue the OpenHarrier legacy.