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Harrier Mk 7


Angels49

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I'm one of those who loves to see a combat aircraft with a shed and a half of ordnance loaded up, so with that said in what situation would a Mk 7 Harrier have the guns in place on a sortie? :D

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Longer answer - the pods the guns would have been carried in under the fuselage were still carried as they improved lift in the hover, which is one of the reasons strakes were carried in there place when not fitted. In its later years of service the shoulder stations occupied by the pods were used for the Sniper pod on the port side and TERMA pod on the starboard side.

So a late service airframe wouldn't carry them operationally as the would be occupied by other pods, but more than likely still carried on training sorties.

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Well that puts another loadout plan on the dung 'eap......I'm thinking of sticking with cold war jets...where if ya had....pretty much ya could load it; think I'm dingy.....on Yankee station they loaded a bloody loo on a Skyraider!!!, and dropped it....probably 'ad some guy on the ground going WTH!!!.

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If you're building a GR.7 from the days of the dark/lichen green camo then cannon pods were commonplace, used as Lift Improvement Devices (LIDS) as mentioned above. They were modular units that were fitted in stages but contained no cannon. Strakes could also be carried but it was quite normal to see a mix both at home in the UK and on jets from the Germany-based squadrons. Point to note - if cannon pods were fitted then different 'ears' were attached to the LIDS dam fence that dropped down aft of the nose wheel when in the hover as the normal ones used with strakes would have been obstructed by the pods.

Cannon pods were also seen on grey GR.7s but by the days of the GR.9 they had been pretty much phased out due to reasons such as those above (intro of TERMA/SNIPER ATP). At home it was almost exclusively strakes used by this stage. The only Squadron that still occasionally carried them was 41® at Coningsby.

So, depending on the timeline your model fits, it may well be appropriate to use them as you seem to be talking GR.7...

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