{"id":31632353,"date":"2026-11-07T13:35:45","date_gmt":"2026-11-07T12:35:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/how-jump-jets-hover-harrier-nozzles-f-35b-liftfan\/"},"modified":"2026-11-07T13:36:08","modified_gmt":"2026-11-07T12:36:08","slug":"how-jump-jets-hover-harrier-nozzles-f-35b-liftfan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/de\/how-jump-jets-hover-harrier-nozzles-f-35b-liftfan\/","title":{"rendered":"How Jump Jets Hover: Harrier Nozzles vs the F-35B LiftFan"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style>\r\n<!-- mfsh:top -->\r\n\r\n<style>\r\n.mfsh-trigger{display:inline-flex;align-items:center;gap:10px;height:44px;padding:0 18px;margin:0 0 26px;border:2px solid #0F1720;background:#fff;color:#0F1720;font-family:inherit;font-size:14px;font-weight:700;line-height:1;letter-spacing:0;text-transform:none;cursor:pointer;box-shadow:none;transition:background 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There is no airflow over the wings, so the wings do nothing. The jet hangs there for one reason only: its engine is pushing down harder than gravity is pulling, and something is keeping that push exactly underneath the centre of gravity.<\/p><p>That second part is the hard part. Pointing thrust at the ground is easy. Balancing it, steering it and keeping it from cooking the runway is what took engineers decades, and in the West only two families of jet fighter have made it into front-line service doing it: the <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/aircraft\/harrier-jump-jet\/\">Harrier<\/a> and the <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/aircraft\/f-35-lightning-ii\/\">F-35B Lightning II<\/a>.<\/p><p>Here is how jump jets hover, why the two do it in completely different ways, and what the pilot is actually doing with the controls while the aeroplane is behaving like a helicopter.<\/p>\r\n<div style=\"background:#f4f6f9;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:18px 22px;margin:8px 0 28px\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 8px;font-weight:700;color:#0d1117\">Quick Facts<\/p><ul style=\"margin:0;padding-left:18px;line-height:1.7\"><li><strong>Core principle:<\/strong> Engine thrust must exceed weight and sit under the centre of gravity<\/li><li><strong>Harrier engine:<\/strong> Rolls-Royce Pegasus, four swivelling nozzles<\/li><li><strong>Harrier nozzle range:<\/strong> 0 to 98.5 degrees, front nozzles cold, rear nozzles hot<\/li><li><strong>Harrier hover control:<\/strong> Reaction control puffers in nose, tail and wingtips<\/li><li><strong>F-35B system:<\/strong> Rolls-Royce LiftSystem with Pratt & Whitney F135<\/li><li><strong>LiftFan:<\/strong> 50 in, two-stage, about 20,000 lbf cold thrust<\/li><li><strong>Swivel nozzle:<\/strong> Rotates 95 degrees in 2.5 seconds<\/li><li><strong>Combined lift thrust:<\/strong> About 40,000 lbf (Rolls-Royce)<\/li><li><strong>Milestone:<\/strong> X-35B: short take-off, supersonic dash, vertical landing, 20 July 2001<\/li><\/ul><\/div>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The Only Rule: Thrust Above the Centre of Gravity<\/h2><p>In normal flight, a wing makes the lift and the engine only has to overcome drag. In a hover, the engine has to carry the whole weight of the aircraft on its own. That means installed thrust greater than weight, which is a brutal requirement for a combat jet loaded with fuel and weapons.<\/p><p>Thrust alone is not enough. If the upward push sits even slightly ahead of or behind the centre of gravity, the aircraft pitches over. So every successful jump jet arranges its lifting jets around the balance point, and then adds some way to nudge the nose, tail and wingtips in the absence of any aerodynamic control.<\/p><p>Designers found three ways to do it. The Soviet <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/aircraft\/yak-38-forger\/\">Yak-38<\/a> carried separate lift engines. The Harrier rotates the exhaust of a single engine. The F-35B drives a big fan from its main engine. Each choice shaped everything else about the aircraft.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/11\/how-jump-jets-hover-harrier-nozzles-f-35b-liftfan-1.jpg\" alt=\"Harrier jump jet hovering low over a concrete pad, its shadow on the ground\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">NASA's AV-8B research Harrier (NASA 704) during a 1987 precision hover test at Crows Landing, California. Nothing but engine thrust is holding it up. Photo: NASA Ames Research Center<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The Harrier: One Engine, Four Nozzles<\/h2><p>The Harrier's secret is the Rolls-Royce Pegasus, a turbofan designed from the start to point its thrust anywhere between straight back and straight down. Instead of a single tailpipe, it has four swivelling nozzles, two on each side of the fuselage. The front pair blow cold air from the fan. The rear pair carry the hot core exhaust, at around 650 degrees Celsius.<\/p><p>Because the nozzles sit either side of the aircraft's middle, the thrust is spread around the centre of gravity rather than concentrated at the tail. The engine sits in the centre of the airframe for exactly that reason, which is why ground crews had to take the wing off to change a Pegasus. Roughly 60 per cent of the airflow leaves through the front nozzles and 40 per cent through the rear.<\/p><p>All four nozzles move together, driven by motorcycle chains and air motors powered by air from the engine's high-pressure compressor. They turn through 98.5 degrees, which means the pilot can point the thrust slightly forward of vertical and fly the aircraft backwards. The engine's two spools also spin in opposite directions, which cancels out much of the gyroscopic kick that would otherwise fight the pilot at low speed.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7\"><em>&ldquo;When I saw the Harrier hovering and flying backwards under control, I reckoned I'd seen everything. And it's not difficult to fly.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Sir Thomas Sopwith<\/strong> &mdash; Aviation pioneer and Hawker chairman, quoted in Flight International, 1979 (as cited in Wikipedia's Hawker Siddeley Harrier article)<\/div><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>The Pegasus grew up alongside the <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/aircraft\/hawker-p1127-kestrel\/\">Hawker P.1127<\/a>, the Harrier's direct ancestor. The P.1127 hovered on a tether on 21 October 1960, achieved its first free hover on 19 November 1960, and made its first transition from hover to wing-borne flight on 8 September 1961. According to the engine's development history, the early engines barely had enough thrust to lift the aircraft at all.<\/p><h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Puffer Jets and the Nozzle Lever<\/h2><p>With no air flowing over the tail, the rudder and elevators are useless in a hover. The Harrier replaces them with a reaction control system: small nozzles in the nose, the tail and the wingtips. Air is siphoned from the engine and squirted out of these puffers when the pilot moves the stick, nudging the aircraft in pitch, roll and yaw.<\/p><p>The cockpit adds one lever no conventional jet has. Alongside the throttle sits the nozzle control, which sets the thrust angle from 0 degrees for normal flight to 98 degrees. For a vertical take-off, the pilot faces into the wind, selects 90 degrees and opens the throttle to maximum until the jet lifts off, then trims the throttle to hold the hover.<\/p><p>Hot days are the enemy. The Pegasus is limited by turbine blade temperature, so the Harrier carries a tank of up to 500 lb of distilled water that is sprayed into the combustion chamber and turbine. That buys extra engine speed and thrust for about 90 seconds, typically for a heavy vertical landing in high ambient temperatures.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0 6px\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/kdeN52_G_Ho\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div><p style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin:0 0 24px;font-style:italic\">An AV-8B Harrier II display at the Royal International Air Tattoo 2023, including the hover.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Why Harriers Rarely Took Off Vertically<\/h2><p>The hover is the most expensive thing a jump jet can do. Taking off straight up limits how much fuel and how many weapons the aircraft can carry, because the engine has to lift all of it with no help from the wing. Hawker Siddeley itself pointed out that short take-off operation saved fuel and let the aircraft carry more ordnance.<\/p><p>So the normal technique is a short take-off roll. The pilot accelerates with the nozzles aft, then snaps them partly down at a speed below a normal take-off speed, usually around 65 knots. The wing and the engine share the load, and the Harrier leaves the ground in a fraction of a conventional runway.<\/p><p>Test pilots found that the transition the other way was surprisingly simple. Even a 15-degree nozzle angle accelerated the aircraft well, and coming back to the hover was a matter of slowing to roughly 200 knots and rotating the nozzles down as the wing stopped lifting. Trainee Harrier pilots were often drawn from experienced helicopter pilots, because the low-speed regime demands helicopter skills.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/11\/how-jump-jets-hover-harrier-nozzles-f-35b-liftfan-2.jpg\" alt=\"Harrier jet hovering above a runway with landing gear down and a large hangar in the background\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">NASA 704, the YAV-8B V\/STOL Systems Research Aircraft, in the hover in 1990. Harrier pilots normally used a short take-off roll rather than a vertical lift-off. Photo: NASA Ames Research Center<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The F-35B: A Fan Behind the Cockpit<\/h2><p>The F-35B had a problem the Harrier never faced: it had to be supersonic and stealthy as well as hover. Four swivelling nozzles on the sides of a stealth fighter were never going to work. The answer was the Rolls-Royce LiftSystem, built around a shaft-driven LiftFan invented at Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works by chief engineer Paul Bevilaqua.<\/p><p>Behind the cockpit sits a 50-inch, two-stage, counter-rotating fan. For vertical flight, a clutch connects it through a driveshaft and bevel gearbox to the front of the Pratt &amp; Whitney F135 engine, feeding it up to 29,000 shaft horsepower. The fan blows about 20,000 lbf of cold air straight down through louvred vanes in the belly. Rolls-Royce gives the combined short take-off and vertical landing thrust as about 40,000 lbf.<\/p><p>At the back, the three-bearing swivel module turns the engine's exhaust from straight aft to straight down. Its three angled segments rotate against each other, swinging the nozzle through 95 degrees in 2.5 seconds and vectoring about 18,000 lbf in lift mode. Two roll posts under the wings bleed bypass air from the engine to hold the wings level.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #1565c0;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7\"><em>&ldquo;The 3BSD can move through ninety-five degrees of motion seamlessly with no change in engine operation.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Kevin Renshaw<\/strong> &mdash; Former Lockheed ASTOVL engineer, 'F-35B Lightning II Three-Bearing Swivel Nozzle', Code One Magazine, 2014<\/div><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>The F-35B steers in the hover without puffers at the nose. Pitch is controlled by varying the areas of the exhaust nozzle and the LiftFan inlet while keeping total lift constant. Yaw comes from swivelling the rear nozzle, roll from the roll posts, and forward or backward motion from tilting the rear nozzle and the fan's vanes.<\/p><h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Cold Air Versus Hot Air<\/h2><p>The lift fan does something clever beyond adding thrust. Its air is cold and comparatively slow, which balances the hot jet at the back without blasting the ground under the nose with exhaust. The alternative, separate lift engines behind the cockpit, put hot, high-pressure jets right where the aircraft meets the surface.<\/p><p>The Soviet <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/aircraft\/yak-141-freestyle\/\">Yak-141<\/a> showed why that matters. According to Lockheed Martin's Code One magazine, its flying displays at the 1991 Paris Air Show were suspended when heat from the lift engines started to dislodge asphalt from the tarmac. At Farnborough the following year it was limited to conventional take-offs and landings, with hovers flown 500 feet above the runway.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/11\/how-jump-jets-hover-harrier-nozzles-f-35b-liftfan-3.jpg\" alt=\"Jet engine and round lift fan housing on a display stand in a museum hangar\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">Lift fan propulsion hardware on display, with the X-35B demonstrator visible behind it. The round fan housing on the left is driven by a shaft from the main engine. Photo: Steve Jurvetson \/ Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>Lift engines and lift fans share one drawback: they are dead weight in cruise. Rolls-Royce's argument is that the fan's extra lift thrust increases take-off payload by more than the weight it adds. The rear swivel nozzle itself was not new. Code One traces it to Pratt &amp; Whitney work in the 1960s and a Convair design for the US Navy in the early 1970s.<\/p><h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Hover, Supersonic, Hover<\/h2><p>On 20 July 2001 the X-35B became the first aircraft to make a short take-off, a level supersonic dash and a vertical landing on a single flight. The LiftSystem won the Collier Trophy that year. The first production-standard F-35B, BF-1, hovered for the first time on 17 March 2010 and landed vertically the next day.<\/p><p>Today the F-35B flies with the <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/air-forces\/united-states-marine-corps-aviation\/\">US Marine Corps<\/a>, the <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/air-forces\/united-kingdom-royal-air-force\/\">Royal Air Force<\/a> and the Royal Navy, and with Italy and Japan. The Royal Navy added a further trick, the shipborne rolling vertical landing, which lets the jet arrive on deck while still moving fast enough for the wing to carry some of the weight. That raises the weight at which it can come aboard; Harriers landing vertically had to dump unused fuel and weapons first.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0 6px\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xyaa4WAoH_M\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div><p style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin:0 0 24px;font-style:italic\">Rolls-Royce's Alison Bacon explains how the LiftSystem lets the F-35B hover.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>Fifty years apart, the Harrier and the F-35B answer the same question in opposite ways. One bends a single jet into four. The other turns a fighter engine into a helicopter gearbox for the final minutes before a vertical landing.<\/p><p>Both obey the same unforgiving rule. Put enough thrust under the centre of gravity and the jet stands on air. Get the balance wrong by a few inches and it falls out of the sky.<\/p>\r\n<p><em>Sources: Rolls-Royce (LiftSystem and Pegasus product pages), Code One Magazine (Lockheed Martin), NASA Ames Research Center image archive, Wikipedia (Rolls-Royce Pegasus, Rolls-Royce LiftSystem, Hawker Siddeley Harrier, Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, Shipborne rolling vertical landing)<\/em><\/p>\r\n<!-- mfsh:bottom -->\r\n\r\n<button type=\"button\" class=\"mfsh-trigger mfsh-bottom\" data-mfsh-placement=\"bottom\" aria-haspopup=\"dialog\"><svg><use href=\"#mfsh-i-share\"\/><\/svg>Share this story<\/button>\r\n\r\n<!-- \/mfsh:bottom -->\r\n\r\n<style>.mfq{margin:34px 0 8px}.mfq h2{font:26px\/1.3 \"Gilroy semiBold\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#0d1117;padding-top:22px;margin:0 0 6px}.mfq .qa details{border-top:1px solid #5C91FF;margin:0;padding:0}.mfq .qa details:last-of-type{border-bottom:1px solid #e2e7ee}.mfq .qa summary{cursor:pointer;list-style:none;display:flex;justify-content:space-between;align-items:center;gap:16px;padding:22px 26px;font:18px\/1.7 \"Gilroy semiBold\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#0d1117}.mfq .qa summary::-webkit-details-marker{display:none}.mfq .qa summary::after{content:\"+\";font:24px Helvetica,sans-serif;color:#3568e0;flex:0 0 auto}.mfq .qa details[open] summary::after{content:\"\\2013\"}.mfq .qa details:hover summary{color:#3568e0}.mfq .qa .a{font:16px\/1.7 \"Gilroy regular\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#454e5e;padding:0 26px 24px}.mfq .qa .a a{color:#3568e0}@media(max-width:680px){.mfq .qa summary{padding:18px 14px;font-size:17px}.mfq .qa .a{padding:0 14px 20px}}<\/style>\r\n\r\n\r\n<section class=\"mfq\"><h2>Frequently Asked Questions<\/h2><div class=\"qa\"><details open><summary>How do jump jets hover?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Jump jets hover by pointing engine thrust downward with more force than the aircraft's weight, and by placing that thrust under the centre of gravity. With no airflow over the wings, small jets or variable nozzles replace the normal control surfaces to keep the aircraft level and steer it in pitch, roll and yaw.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>How does the Harrier's Pegasus engine make the Harrier hover?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">The Rolls-Royce Pegasus has four swivelling nozzles, two cold fan nozzles at the front and two hot exhaust nozzles at the rear, arranged around the Harrier's centre of gravity. The pilot rotates all four together with a cockpit lever, through 98.5 degrees, from straight back for normal flight to straight down for the hover.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>How does the Harrier stay level in a hover?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">The Harrier uses a reaction control system. Air from the engine is siphoned to small nozzles in the nose, tail and wingtips, and the pilot's stick movements open these puffers to nudge the aircraft in pitch, roll and yaw, because the normal tail surfaces do nothing without airflow.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>How does the F-35B LiftFan work?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">The F-35B's LiftFan is a 50-inch, two-stage counter-rotating fan behind the cockpit. For vertical flight a clutch and driveshaft connect it to the F135 engine, delivering up to 29,000 shaft horsepower. The fan blows about 20,000 lbf of cold air downward, balancing the rear swivel nozzle and two roll posts under the wings.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Why did the F-35B not copy the Harrier's four nozzles?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">The F-35B had to be supersonic and stealthy as well as hover. A shaft-driven lift fan and a single rear swivel nozzle fit that requirement better than four side nozzles. The fan's cold air also avoids the ground heating problems of hot lift engines, which damaged asphalt during the Yak-141's 1991 Paris displays.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Why do Harriers and F-35Bs rarely take off vertically?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">A vertical take-off forces the engine to lift the whole aircraft with no help from the wing, which limits fuel and weapons. A short take-off roll lets the wing share the load. For landings, the Royal Navy's shipborne rolling vertical landing technique similarly uses wing lift to bring the F-35B aboard at a higher weight.<\/div><\/details><\/div><\/section>\r\n\r\n\r\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@type\":\"FAQPage\",\"mainEntity\":[{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"How do jump jets hover?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Jump jets hover by pointing engine thrust downward with more force than the aircraft's weight, and by placing that thrust under the centre of gravity. With no airflow over the wings, small jets or variable nozzles replace the normal control surfaces to keep the aircraft level and steer it in pitch, roll and yaw.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"How does the Harrier's Pegasus engine make the Harrier hover?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"The Rolls-Royce Pegasus has four swivelling nozzles, two cold fan nozzles at the front and two hot exhaust nozzles at the rear, arranged around the Harrier's centre of gravity. The pilot rotates all four together with a cockpit lever, through 98.5 degrees, from straight back for normal flight to straight down for the hover.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"How does the Harrier stay level in a hover?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"The Harrier uses a reaction control system. Air from the engine is siphoned to small nozzles in the nose, tail and wingtips, and the pilot's stick movements open these puffers to nudge the aircraft in pitch, roll and yaw, because the normal tail surfaces do nothing without airflow.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"How does the F-35B LiftFan work?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"The F-35B's LiftFan is a 50-inch, two-stage counter-rotating fan behind the cockpit. For vertical flight a clutch and driveshaft connect it to the F135 engine, delivering up to 29,000 shaft horsepower. The fan blows about 20,000 lbf of cold air downward, balancing the rear swivel nozzle and two roll posts under the wings.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Why did the F-35B not copy the Harrier's four nozzles?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"The F-35B had to be supersonic and stealthy as well as hover. 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For landings, the Royal Navy's shipborne rolling vertical landing technique similarly uses wing lift to bring the F-35B aboard at a higher weight.\"}}]}<\/script><div style=\"background:#f0f4ff;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:16px 20px;margin:32px 0 8px\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 8px;font-weight:600;color:#333\">Related Posts<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/hawker-p1127-harrier-awkward-ancestor\/\">Hawker P.1127: The Harrier's Awkward Ancestor<\/a><\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/yakovlev-yak-141-freestyle\/\">Soviet Supersonic Jump Jet Hidden Inside the F-35B<\/a><\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/rolls-royce-flying-bedstead-thrust-measuring-rig-vtol\/\">The Flying Bedstead That Taught Britain to Hover<\/a><\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/ski-jump-vs-catapult-carrier-launch-explained\/\">Ski-Jump or Catapult: The Two Ways to Get a Jet Off a Ship<\/a><\/p><\/div>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How jump jets hover: the Harrier swivels four engine nozzles, while the F-35B drives a 29,000-horsepower fan behind its cockpit.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":31632270,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[665,664],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31632353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aviation-world","category-military-aviation"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>How Jump Jets Hover: Harrier vs F-35B LiftFan | MiGFlug<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"How jump jets hover: the Harrier swivels four Pegasus nozzles and uses puffer jets, while the F-35B drives a 29,000 hp 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