IS THE HARRIER JET THE TRUE KING OF CLOSE AIR SUPPORT?
May 8, 2023Mac Caltrider
Diving from 10,000 feet, Marine Corps Capt. Eric Albright’s AV-8B Harrier II rocketed toward the Afghan countryside below. It was the middle of the night, and everything beyond the jet’s glass canopy was pitch black. Albright knew somewhere in the green world of his night vision the ground was screaming toward him at 620 miles per hour.
Undaunted, Albright kept his targeting system locked on one of the four Taliban soldiers burying an IED. As the window to recover from the dive narrowed, Albright unleashed a burst from the strike aircraft’s five-barreled GAU-12/U Equalizer machine gun. Albright watched the man disappear in a flurry of 25mm rounds. The three others scattered like cockroaches, only to be captured by Marines waiting in the darkness.
Harrier jet
A US Marine Corps AV-8B Harrier conducts flight operations aboard the Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge (LHD 3) in the Atlantic Ocean, June 27, 2022. US Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Armando Elizalde.
Albright pulled the nose of the Harrier jet skyward as his vectored thrust engines sent him disappearing back into the Afghan night. This was just one of 159 combat missions Albright flew over a six-month period. It was Helmand province in 2012, and Harriers were in high demand.
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