British Aerospace Harrier II AV-8B Harrier II Night Attack

The original AV-8B was a daytime attack aircraft: its targeting relied on a television imager and a laser tracker, and its usefulness dropped sharply after dark. In the mid-1980s export interest from Brazil, Japan and Italy encouraged McDonnell Douglas to keep developing the Harrier II, and in 1985 the company began work on a night-attack variant. The idea was not a new aircraft but giving the existing one the sensors and cockpit interface it needed to fly low and strike in darkness.

The airframe chosen for conversion was the 87th production single-seat AV-8B, which left the McDonnell Douglas line in June 1987 as the first night-attack Harrier II. Flight tests went well and validated the new capability. The version was first known as the AV-8D but was eventually designated AV-8B(NA), and the first of 66 aircraft was delivered to the Marine Corps in September 1989. It was fielded in 1991, the first upgrade of the AV-8B. At the same time the British Harrier GR7 programme ran in step with this Marine Corps initiative: the GR7 was essentially the RAF counterpart of the Night Attack, and earlier GR5s were later brought up to that standard.

The most visible change was the forward-looking infrared (FLIR) camera mounted on top of the nose cone. A FLIR builds its picture from the heat objects give off, so the pilot can make out vehicles, buildings or terrain without visible light. The image was shown on a wide-angle head-up display (HUD) made by Smiths Industries, and the cockpit was adapted for night-vision goggles. A Honeywell digital moving map was added, easing low-level navigation without visual references. Outside, the flare and chaff dispensers were relocated and the ram-air intake at the base of the fin was lengthened.

The Night Attack also introduced a more powerful and reliable engine, the F402-RR-408 with electronic control, in place of the F402-RR-404A of the first AV-8Bs.

The Night Attack was the intermediate step between the day aircraft and the Harrier II Plus. The latter is very similar to the Night Attack, with an APG-65 radar added in a lengthened nose. According to aviation author Lon Nordeen, the radar brought a slight increase in drag and some extra weight, but there was little difference in performance between the -408-powered Night Attack and the radar-equipped Harrier II Plus. Many day-attack AV-8Bs ended up converted to one of these two standards, and the rest were withdrawn.

Night capability reached even the two-seater. In the early 2000s, 17 TAV-8Bs were upgraded with night-attack capability, the F402-RR-408 engine and software and structural changes, so that pilots could train on the same equipment they would find in the squadrons.

The new capability was put to use in Afghanistan. In October 2002 squadron VMA-513 deployed six Night Attack AV-8Bs to Bagram. Each carried a LITENING targeting pod and, besides attack sorties, flew reconnaissance missions, mostly at night, exactly the scenario the variant had been conceived for, and it remained in service until the Marine Corps retired its Harrier II fleet as a whole.