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Comment by MoreMoschops | Hacker News Reader

Why is a Harrier or a helicopter not a full aircraft? They certainly look and behave like aircraft.

Well, they are but they also have vertical take-off. What the person above was probably trying to say is that it is no good for launching fighter jets.

More to the point, while your hypothetical eccentric billionaire can probably afford a helicopter or two, a Harrier is currently the only kind of fixed-wing aircraft that can launch from these ships--good luck finding one on the open market.

The Harrier actually launches horizontally on carriers like the Invincible, but they require the ski-jump to launch, and the deck isn't, I think, long enough for conventional carrier aircraft.

The Harrier does not usually launch vertically from these carrier either, but they are STOVL aircraft; I think you meant to say that the original poster meant to say that non-STOVL jets struggle to launch from them, which is still quite a leap from claiming that neither a helicopter nor a STOVL-capable plane is a full aircraft.

Apologies for the lack of clarity. I think by now you know what I meant, though.

If it can't launch fighter jets, then what is the sloped ramp used for?

Harriers. I don't know if ordinary fighter jets would even benefit from a ski jump, but the ski jump is to make up for how short the deck is (generally too short to launch a jet).

I thought harriers performed vertical takeoff, do they do traditional carrier launches as well?

Yes! Harriers can perform vertical takeoff, but they can carry much more weight launching horizontally. More weight means carrying more fuel and more weapons, which makes it much more useful.

See the links below; compare "max takeoff weight" for vertical takeoff ("VTO") and rolling takeoff (also called short takeoff, or "STO").

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAE_Harrier_II#Specifications_....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_AV-8B_Harrier...

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