Could Indonesia be the last Harrier operator?
Other than prototype airframes going back to the P.1127 in 1957, between 1969 and 2003, just 824 Harrier variants of all types were delivered to end-users.
That’s not a lot of aircraft.
This is the same subsonic strike fighter that scared the Guatemalans enough for Belize to gain (and keep) independence, liberate the Falklands, give Italy, Spain, and Thailand their first operational aircraft carriers; provide the Soviets a moment of pause in their plans to sweep through the Fulda Gap, give India a strong naval upper-hand over Pakistan since 1983, and deliver ordnance on the “X” in combat sorties over the Balkans, Libya, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Oh, yes, and led Pepsi into a pretty legit lawsuit.
Talk about a little plane that could!
However, a dated design, surpassed by the F-35 and several generations of helicopter gunships (keep in mind the AH-1 Cobra was only just coming online when the AV-8A was introduced), the Harrier has been on its way out for the past two decades.
The Royal Navy folded their birds into the RAF which ditched the type in 2010.
India completed 33 years of jump jet operations in 2016.
The Thai Navy’s handful of surplus Spanish Matadors have been long out of service.
The USMC– the largest Harrier operator– plans to retire the last of its birds in 2026/27 (the fleet largely living off British spare parts and through cannibalizing 72 retired airframes acquired in 2011). The Marines are already shifting airframes to museums.
That just leaves the navies of Spain (12 EAV-8B Plus and 1 TAV-8B operated by 9 Escuadrilla) and Italy (14 AV-8B Plus and 1 TAV-8B of Gruppo Aerei Imbarcati along with 15 stored airframes) as the keeper of the Harrier flame outside of the U.S. with the Spanish planning on putting the type to bed in 2030 (no doubt inheriting the final couple of pallets of parts from the USMC) and the Italians doing the same sometime this year.
Speaking of which, word comes that Indonesia may acquire its first aircraft carrier, the soon to be retired ITS Giuseppe Garibaldi.
Italian Navy ITS Giuseppe Garibaldi (C-551) with nine AV-8B Harrier II and one Sea King in the flight deck carrier
While smaller than the 22,000-ton British Invincible class jump carriers and even the 17,000-ton Spanish Príncipe de Asturias, the 14,000-ton Garibaldi is newer than all of those (now scrapped) flattops. Don’t get me wrong, she had a full career, having retired last October after 29 years of service that included combat sorties off the Balkans, Afghanistan, and Libya, and can carry a mixed airwing of some 20 helicopters and AV-8Bs from her 570-foot flight deck.
Will the Indonesians get Harriers as part of the deal?
Maybe, but do they really want to try operating them? The learning curve is steep on the aircraft, and it is even more unforgiving in old age, so that may not be the best idea, especally for planes so long in the tooth. One method of getting into a type for which no conversion training program exists would be to have contract foreign maintainers and aviators (ex-USMC, Italian etc.) which is a whole different can of worms that may be politically unpalatable.
My bet is that the juice won’t be worth the squeeze and the Indonesian Navy will use Garibaldi, if she is acquired, as a host for its helicopters (they have a mix of about 50 AS565 Dauphin, AS332 Super Puma, MBB Bo 105, EC725 Caracal, and other types) while bringing on a wing or two of navalized drones– which is what all the cool kids are doing.
The old spaghetti carrier could eke out another 10-20 years in low-impact UAV operations, not underway in a traditional aircraft carrier sense, but shuffling around the Indonesian littoral and operating as a mobile drone airfield and heliport that can be parked in any bay or cove that will accommodate her 27-foot draft.
A concept roughly akin to the way seaplane tenders were deployed in the first half of the 20th Century.
KAMIKAWA MARU (Japanese seaplane tender, 1936) Anchored off Amoy, China, 16 July 1939, with a deck load of KAWANISHI E7K-2 and NAKAJIMA E8N floatplanes both forward and aft. I can count at least 14 aircraft. This vessel, the first of the class converted to a seaplane carrier, saw extensive service in Chinese waters from 1938 to 1940, with her planes often bombing and strafing key Chinese positions. NH 82154
