Idling, yes, but Harriers had their nozzles pointed straight down at least sometime during the flight regime, no?
For L-class ships most all take-off is done in a STOL config, the Harriers deck run with the nozzles aft and near the front of the deck they rotate the nozzles to an intermediate position to facilitate take-off at a still to slow to really be flying speed. Landing, they achieve a hover about 10 ft above the deck and chop the throttle. Controlled crash.
Most nervous I have ever been with my Inspector 12 stamp was when repairing and returning to service Harrier main struts. No mechanic wants to be the star of the mishap board. That landing gear takes a beating.
I read somewhere that the blast shield used by Navy jets when launched from a carrier are now using the same type of thermal tiles used by the Space Shuttle.....maybe they could try something along that line....
The JBDs are steel, some kind of paint on coating, but the key is a cooling system of water pipes running through the JBDs. The thermal tiles would be too fragile, remember aircraft get towed across the JBDs, sailors with tools and all that.
From my five years on an LHA and going through a shipyard to mad the ship to carry V-22s, they have worked through a lot of these problems. Our poor old ship they had to paint on the hangar deck where you could park them so as not to overstress the structure of what also happens to be the welldeck overhead. I try not to be too mean on the aircraft, mine is only the view of the field maintainer, and our own Pentagon insider is much more informed/enthusiastic on the project.
I just see what might become field sustainability problems, I'm sure my old shop still doesn't have their multi-million buck bender to make hyd lines for the beast. I understand that the wind limitations for shipboard flight ops are pretty iffy. Things take up a lot of deck space and if you want to spread the thing for maintenance then it is going to the flight deck, no room below, flight deck will then be a little impaired for flight ops and the weather better not be too iffy.
I think the thing would be much better served working from dry land. Boat ops eat a lot of space, lots of support equipment added to an already stuffed ship, etc. The extensive use of carbon fiber is great for increasing the usable load, fuel savings, corrosion resistance and all that, going to be a bear to fix in the weeds when Johnny Abdullah starts blowing holes in it. Same with the 5000psi titanium hyd. lines, and such. Like many of our newest aircraft it exists because Fed-Ex and DHL exist.
I'm 5 years carrier, five years L-class, 3 years helos tin bender, carbon fiber whacker, and hyd. mech. Don't really miss it, kicking the tires one a month on F-18s is now good enough for me.
