Yeah its a real shame. Its not like these planes are obsolete, the GR.9 is argueably the best close air suport aircraft in the world. The problem is that that is all it really does, todays combat aircraft need to be multirole.
This wouldn't have happened if they hadn't messed around in upgrading the old FRS1 sea harrier to FA.2 standard with the blue vixen radar. If they had instead taken the new at that time Harrier GR.5 and put the blue vixen in that they would now still have a modern Sea Harrier with all the ground attack capability of the GR.9 aswell as one of the most advanced air intercept radars on the planet, making it multirole as a fleet defender. Its abilities would be far greater than the current AV8B+ Harrier II. If we had this aircraft today I have no doubt it would not be retired.
Whoevers idea it was to update a very old original Sea Harrier design with highly advanced systems when a brand new aircraft design was right there ready to be used, in the end they are the ones at fault.
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