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Washington, D.C. - December 21, 2007 – Former Marine test pilot and EAA member Art Nalls remembers getting a ride in a Harrier, the plane famous for its vertical takeoffs and landings, right before he was to start his training.
“I showed up for the brief and they basically told me to suit up, strap in and shut up.” At the end of the runway, the pilot asked, “Are you ready to go?”
“Yes, sir,” Nalls replied.
But he wasn’t ready for what happened next. “I had never accelerated that fast in my life,” he said. “It gave me an unbelievably sense of power. I was absolutely captivated by the airplane.”
Nall’s reaction to the Harrier isn’t unusual.
“The Harrier has captured the hearts and minds of anyone who has ever flown it once they get over the initial apprehension because it has 21,000 pounds of thrust,” he says. “That thrust is controlled by four external nozzles all controlled by a single lever actuated by the pilot’s left hand. There are no fancy computers that make it fly; it’s completely manual.”
Once you understand Nalls’ love for the airplane, you may understand what he did next. He bought one, making him the only civilian owner of a working Harrier in the world.
Nalls purchased a Sea Harrier F/A2 in 2005 after hearing more than two years earlier that Britain’s Royal Navy was selling some Harriers as government surplus. Nalls spent most of his military career flying the American AV-8A and AB-8B Harriers.
“I had asked some of my British friends to keep their eyes and ears open, but I didn’t hold up much hope that they would be successful,” he says. “They were mostly finding scrap. Then one Monday I got an e-mail that they found one that was complete and intact.”
Nalls got on the next flight to England. He saw the airplane and completed the deal that day.
Now that he owned a Harrier, the next challenge was to dismantle it and ship it to America. Nalls says there was no shortage of forms to fill out, but about six months later it was on American soil.
The long project of putting it back together started with requests to get needed publications and manuals for the plane and its parts. Construction was delayed as he and his crew searched for necessary parts.
“A starter the size of a Folgers coffee can slowed us up by two months,” Nalls says. “It was fairly hard to come by, but we eventually found one off eBay, one in the Midwest that was salvaged from a go-kart and three from the UK. That gives us some spares to work with.”
Finally, on Jan. 10, 2007, the FAA signed it off as airworthy. But the work was still not done, Nalls says. They had to troubleshoot the plane’s various systems and confirm the plane’s center of gravity.
Finally it was time for the first flight. Naturally, he was apprehensive. “We didn’t know what we didn’t know about the plane. All it takes is one loose screw or one bolt that didn’t get tightened and we have problems.”
Plus, it had been 16 years since Nalls last flew a Harrier. Would it be like riding a bike?
For the most part, it was. “I was grinning from ear to ear. I was absolutely in love with the way the airplane flies — the feel, the flight controls, and the visibility. I was a kid and in love again.”
The only thing that went wrong in that first flight was that Nalls lost the radio so he couldn’t contact his crew on the ground. But they had briefed for that contingency and Nalls continued his flight just as they had planned. The radio problem was later traced to a bad cord.
The second flight on Nov. 11 didn’t go as well. About 11 minutes into the flight, Nalls got a “hydraulic 1” warning light. He lowered his landing gear early; it would not fully engage.
They decided a vertical landing would be best and diverted to Patuxent River Naval Air Station. Nalls next tried positive and negative G maneuvers to let gravity help lower the gear. While it worked to a degree, the gear stuck halfway. “It’s the worst thing that can happen on a Harrier,” Nalls says, “because if the nose gear collapses on landing, it can slam down and break off the cockpit or fire the ejection seat. Quite often it’s fatal.”
Although the warning light was still on inside the cockpit, from the outside it looked as if the gear were in place and locked. It was time to land.
“I began a very gentle vertical landing, one of the best landings I’ve ever done,” Nalls says. “And for a split second on touchdown, the nose appeared to be supported by gear. And then the nose dropped five feet. I thought the seat was going to fire. But it didn’t. I shut the engine down, and moved my neck and wiggled my toes to make sure I didn’t break my back. I immediately opened the cockpit and made a joke. Then everyone knew it was going to be OK.”
Damage was minor, but now they are again waiting for parts to be shipped from England. And Nalls says he still needs to rebuild or find a new hydraulic pump. They will also remove the ejection seat so they can do a thorough inspection engine forward.
Nalls, a Washington, D.C. real-estate developer, suspects the hydraulic leak came from the hydraulically powered windshield wiper. The plane was towed back to St. Mary’s by road for repairs; in the holiday spirit, Nalls sat in the cockpit dressed as Santa as it made the short journey.
He hopes to again be flying by February, and put the Sea Harrier on the air show circuit by March or April.
“The hardest part is over,” he says. “Plus I’ve verified I can still fly it. The kid is back!”
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Former Marine test pilot Art Nalls takes off in his Sea Harrier. Nalls is the first person to own his own Harrier, after buying it from the British Navy as surplus.
Nalls Sea Harrier in flight.
Following a test flight in November, Nalls’ Sea Harrier was towed back to its home base.
For More Information
Art Nalls Biography
Sea Harrier
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