The Michigan Flight Museum aircraft selection was unfortunately a bit disappointing, because I'd seen all but one of them before; indeed, I'd seen the F-84F, F-18, A-4, F-4, the SeaCobra, even the SPAD, at the Kalamazoo Air Zoo earlier in the trip. But there was one plane I'd never seen in person...
20250531-SDIM6729 by
Travis Butler, on Flickr
Sigma fp, MD 35-70/3.5 Macro
The Harrier jump-jet, first VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing) jet to enter service.
It was a bit of an awkward, ugly aircraft:
20250531-SDIM6726 by
Travis Butler, on Flickr
(The air intakes were so large they were nicknamed 'Elephant's Ears'.)
But it did things no other aircraft could do.
20250531-SDIM6718 by
Travis Butler, on Flickr
The 'business end' of the Harrier - four of these rotating nozzles swiveled to let it hover like a helicopter, or swivel back for conventional jet propulsion.
20250531-SDIM6716 by
Travis Butler, on Flickr
The nozzles got in the way of conventional landing gear, so the Harrier had bicycle gear on the main fuselage, and these weird outriggers at the wingtips.
