b787
Captain
I agree totally with this statement, the Yak-38, was akin to its main western counterpart of its generation and time frame, the Harrier as well as the Yak-38, were very limited aircraft, for the US navy fighters in the 1980s of course were very limited since they were flying F-14s and F-4s and later F-18s, which were only comparable to the latest Yak-141, MiG-29K and Su-27K.
But in 1982 the Russians were flying Tu-22Ms, Su-24Ms and sailing Victor class submarines that really made the whole concept of the aircraft carrier obsolete for big wars.
The Harrier concept of jet propulsion was not even accepted on the F-35B, it was the Ya-141 and new developments that gave way to the F-35B.
The Yak-38 used a single cruise/VSTOL main engine and two lift engines to reduce thrust losses, the harrier was simpler in concept and relatively more successful but not on the X-32 concept, thus say the Yak-38 was unsuccessful is pretty a simplistic statement specially since the Harrier did not achieve a single air to air victory in 1991 and several were shot down.
Thus like in any war the effectiveness of a weapon is given by the specific conditions of a battle and war.
Any way we do not need to extend this, this was a brief comment for those pictures
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