McDonnell Douglas AV-8B Harrier II

Updated: October 2026 – When spotters talk about the Harrier, most think of British engineering first. The version that flew most often over four decades, however, comes from St. Louis, Missouri. There, McDonnell Douglas turned the original Harrier into the AV-8B Harrier II: with a larger wing, more fuel and more weapon stations, tailored to the US Marine Corps. This page tells the story from the manufacturer’s perspective. You learn how the program came about after a failed large-scale project, how the work was divided between America and England, what paths the jet took with the USMC, in Spain and in Italy, and where you can still get it in front of your camera today.

The AV-8B in one sentence

The AV-8B is a single-seat ground-attack aircraft that, thanks to a single engine with four swiveling nozzles, can land vertically and take off with a very short run. That means it does not need a long runway. Its place is on amphibious assault ships, small carriers and improvised landing sites near the front. That is exactly what made it so valuable to the US Marine Corps, because the Marines wanted air support where their ground troops go ashore.

Technically, a Rolls-Royce Pegasus sits in the fuselage, designated F402 in the US. In the early production aircraft it delivered about 95 kilonewtons, in the most powerful version F402-RR-408 about 105 kilonewtons. Interesting for the program history: the engine work was also divided, with Rolls-Royce taking three quarters and Pratt & Whitney one quarter.

From AV-16 to AV-8B: how the program came about

The starting point was the first-generation Harrier, which the Marine Corps flew as the AV-8A. The Marines were convinced of the concept, but range and payload were not enough for them. In 1973, Hawker Siddeley and McDonnell Douglas therefore began working together on a significantly more capable successor. The goal was to roughly double payload and range. Unofficially the project ran as the AV-16.

The project failed over money. In March 1975, Britain withdrew because the defense budget was shrinking and costs were rising. The US was not willing to bear the development alone and ended the AV-16 in the same year.

McDonnell Douglas did not give up, though. Instead of a completely new jet, the company proposed a more modest solution to the Marine Corps: keep the existing Pegasus engine and improve the airframe in a targeted way. The US Department of Defense gave the green light in 1976. The key building blocks came from the know-how of the manufacturer, which had great experience in fighter construction with the F-4 Phantom II and the F-15 Eagle:

• a new, larger wing, to a large extent made of carbon-fiber composite
• auxiliary surfaces under the fuselage that capture the cushion of air bouncing back from below when hovering near the ground
• more internal fuel and additional external stores stations
• a higher-set cockpit for better visibility

Division of labor between St. Louis and England

The Harrier II is a fine example of transatlantic defense cooperation. For the American aircraft, McDonnell Douglas was prime contractor, with final assembly in St. Louis. British Aerospace, now part of BAE Systems, manufactured assemblies at Kingston and Dunsfold and accounted for about 40 percent of the labor hours on the airframe.

For the British version the ratio was reversed. On the Harrier GR5, British Aerospace was prime contractor and McDonnell Douglas a supplier, with final assembly at Dunsfold. The GR5 first flew on April 30, 1985, and differed from the AV-8B in avionics, armament and wing construction details, among other things. It later became the GR7 and GR9. The RAF flew its last missions on December 15, 2010. In November 2011, the US bought 72 retired British Harrier IIs along with spare parts – mainly to supply its own AV-8B fleet with components.

Feature	AV-8B (USA, export)	Harrier GR5/GR7/GR9 (Britain)
Prime contractor	McDonnell Douglas	British Aerospace
Final assembly	St. Louis	Dunsfold
First flight	1981 (development aircraft)	April 30, 1985 (GR5)
Operators	USMC, Spain, Italy	Royal Air Force, Royal Navy
Retired	USMC June 2026; Spain and Italy still active	December 2010 (last missions)

The three development stages

McDonnell Douglas developed the AV-8B further in several steps, each in response to new requirements from the Marines.

Day Attack: the first production version was intended for daylight missions. It had a short nose without radar and was considered a pure ground-attack jet.

Night Attack: for night missions, the manufacturer converted the 87th production aircraft. It left the hangar in June 1987. Added were an infrared sensor on top of the nose, a night-vision-compatible cockpit and later the more powerful engine. The first of 66 Night Attack aircraft went to the Marine Corps in September 1989.

Harrier II Plus: approved in 1990, the prototype flew on September 22, 1992, and the first production aircraft on March 17, 1993. The lengthened nose carries the APG-65 radar, which McDonnell Douglas also fitted in the F/A-18 Hornet. This lets the Plus employ radar-guided air-to-air weapons. Spain and Italy bought this version.

Besides new builds, there was a large remanufacture program: older aircraft were taken apart and rebuilt to the Plus standard. For the Marine Corps, it came to 72 aircraft in the end, the last one in 2003. New AV-8Bs were built until the end of the 1990s, after which only the conversion continued. The program’s final phase already belonged to Boeing.

With the US Marine Corps: 1983 to 2026

For the Marine Corps, the AV-8B was for four decades the aircraft that sailed with the ground troops on ships. The squadrons were based mainly in two places: at Cherry Point on the East Coast and at Yuma in the Arizona desert. From there, detachments went aboard the amphibious assault ships.

The jet was used in the 1991 Gulf War, over the Balkans, in Afghanistan and in Iraq. In 2011, Marine Harriers flew strikes in Libya, and in August 2016 again from the USS Wasp against targets of the so-called Islamic State in Libya. In September 2012, a Taliban attack on Camp Bastion in Afghanistan destroyed several Harriers of squadron VMA-211 on the ground.

The farewell went squadron by squadron and went hand in hand with the arrival of the F-35B:

• VMA-211 in Yuma gave up its Harriers in 2016 and was converted to an F-35B squadron.
• VMA-311 ended Harrier operations in 2020.
• VMA-214 switched to the F-35B in 2022.
• VMA-231 made its last Harrier flight in May 2025 at Cherry Point.
• VMA-223 “Bulldogs” was the last squadron. In June 2026, the Marine Corps officially retired the Harrier from service at Cherry Point.

How to read the six-digit Bureau Numbers on the tail is explained in the post Decoding US military serials. A database such as Scramble also helps with researching individual aircraft.

Spain: export customer from the start

The Armada Española was the first export customer. In March 1983 it ordered twelve aircraft, which McDonnell Douglas designated EAV-8B. In the Navy they are called VA-2 Matador II – a nod to the older AV-8S Matadors of the first generation. The first three landed on October 6, 1987, at the naval base Rota near Cádiz.

In March 1993, Spain ordered eight Harrier II Plus. In addition, the Navy had older aircraft converted to the Plus standard (the figures vary between five and eleven); the last of them returned on December 5, 2003. That also ended production of the Harrier family as a whole.

For a long time, the carrier Príncipe de Asturias served as the platform. Since its decommissioning in February 2013, the Matadors have operated from the amphibious assault ship Juan Carlos I. As early as 2014 it was reported that Spain was extending the service life. After the end with the Marine Corps, however, the supply of spare parts becomes harder because the largest user drops out. How long the Spanish Harriers will keep flying is open as of October 2026.

Rota is used jointly by the Spanish Navy and the US Navy. Before a visit, read the post Spotting in Spain and the guide Photographing military airfields.

Italy: Harriers for the Garibaldi

For the Marina Militare the starting position was special: an old law long did not allow the Navy its own combat aircraft. After the change, Italy ordered two two-seat TAV-8B trainers in May 1989 and then 16 AV-8B Plus. The first three single-seaters came from the US, while Alenia assembled the rest in Italy from delivered kits.

The Harrier unit Gruppo Aerei Imbarcati was established in February 1991 at Grottaglie near Taranto. The Navy officially took over the two two-seaters in August 1991 aboard the Giuseppe Garibaldi in Norfolk, Virginia. The first single-seaters followed in 1994, and in November 1997 the fleet of 18 aircraft was complete.

The list of deployments is long: Somalia 1995, Albania 1997, Kosovo 1999, Indian Ocean 2001/2002 and Libya 2011, mostly from the carrier Giuseppe Garibaldi. Since 2018 the Navy has been receiving the F-35B as its successor, operating from the larger carrier Cavour. As of October 2026, Harrier and F-35B run in parallel. We could not reliably document an exact retirement date for the Italian AV-8B Plus.

How to recognize the AV-8B in the field

At an airshow or a fence in southern Europe, the Harrier II is actually unmistakable. The hard part is more the question of exactly which Harrier is standing in front of you.

1. Look for the outrigger wheels: if the small wheels under the wings sit at roughly mid-span, it is a Harrier II. At the wingtips they point to the first Harrier or the Sea Harrier.
2. Check the nose: long and pointed means Plus with radar. Short with a small dome on top is the Night Attack, short and smooth the Day Attack.
3. Count the seats: two seats in tandem under a long, stepped canopy indicate the two-seat TAV-8B.
4. Read the serial: Spanish, Italian, American or British markings reliably separate the AV-8B and GR versions.

The F-35B as its successor can also land vertically but has two canted vertical stabilizers and only one exhaust nozzle at the tail. The V-22 Osprey, also typical of the Marine Corps, is a completely different caliber with its tilting rotors. The post Recognizing fighter jets in Europe gives you an overview of other types.

Where to find the Harrier II as a spotter

With the end at the Marine Corps, the chances shift clearly to southern Europe. You will see the most flight activity around Rota and Grottaglie. The rules for military restricted areas apply there. Photograph only from public ground and find out about local bans beforehand.

Airshows in Spain and Italy, where the Navy Harriers occasionally show a hover display, also offer good opportunities. International appearances have become rare. The post Airshows in Europe for plane spotters provides an overview of the season. How to track movements of military aircraft without public flight schedules is explained in the guide Tracking military aircraft online.

In the US, retired AV-8Bs are now on display in several aviation and naval museums. Ask the museum directly before a visit which aircraft are currently shown.

The AV-8B in the McDonnell Douglas portfolio

In McDonnell Douglas’s lineup, the Harrier II was a special case. Phantom, Eagle and Hornet were in-house developments for the Air Force and Navy. The AV-8B, by contrast, was built on a British basic idea and aimed at the Marine Corps as the only major US customer. Technically it still benefited from the company network, most clearly in the Plus’s radar, which comes from the Hornet. If you collect the manufacturer’s military types, the F-4 Phantom II, F-15 Eagle, F/A-18 Hornet and AV-8B give you a fairly complete history of American combat aircraft between 1960 and 2000.

With Planetrack you keep this collection together: you post every sighting with photo, aircraft type, serial, operator, airport and spot, sort it into your hangar and note open variants on the wish list. In the community you share your Harrier pictures, get likes and comments and swap notes in chat with other military spotters about upcoming airshows.

Conclusion

The AV-8B Harrier II is the result of a failed large-scale project from which McDonnell Douglas made an affordable, significantly improved jump jet. Built in St. Louis and in English plants, it flew for over 40 years for the US Marine Corps and became the backbone of the Spanish and Italian naval air arms. Since June 2026, the chapter in the US is closed. If you still want to experience a flying Harrier, you will find it at Rota or Grottaglie – as long as it is still there. The sister page Boeing AV-8B Harrier II offers a variant finder and further identification tips.