Bit of thread drift here…
Landing back at my base, Prescott Az., I heard a call “Harrier, flight of 6”. Thinking this is some sort of exotic homebuilt, I taxied in and parked. Leaving the airplane, I looked at the approach and was gobsmacked, stunned, joyous to see a flight of 6 Harriers on Final! They landed and taxied to the FBO ramp where they shut down. This was of course the US Marine Corps.
Well I made my way over there and said to the FBO guy who I know “do you think they’d let me (a foreigner) on the ramp?” “Sure” he said and introduced me to the CO, who then gave me a tour. I expressed regret about how we didn’t have any now and he said “Don’t worry about that – they’re all here now”. It turned out two of the pilots were Brits as well – one RAF and one RN.
The CO told me there was no immediate threat to them keeping flying (this was maybe 2015) but I don’t know the current situation ref F35, etc..
Those costs are amazingly low. The Harrier was quoted in some govt stats at £40k/hr, but of course there are loads of ways of accounting 
The F16 is indeed great value. Probably half of the cost of the Eurofighter.
Various American military publications suggest the following hourly running costs;
F22 $33,500
F35A $28,500
Harrier $13,750
F16 $8,000
A10 $6,000
Ex-military jets are not things you can skimp on maintaining, as was proved by the appalling accident with the Thunder City Lightning.
These are owned by Art Nalls, a quick Google brings up heaps of info.
He said in one video that this was done as a financial venture, so they were intending on at least breaking even from the airshow revenue. I’ve no idea if they did or not but he did the airshow rounds for 10 years with it, which is considerably longer than most old jets manage with a given owner.
In the info package about the aircraft it says the Sea Harrier was delivered in 1979 and has 1324 hrs TTSN! If this guy flew 200hrs since 2008 then he’s been flying it almost as regularly as when it was in service.
From the add:
“The aircraft has been a star attraction at airshows across North America for 13 years flying almost 200 hours.”
An average of not even 25hrs/yr tells a lot about cost of ownership and operation …
40k/hour is huge ! I guess it is a very complex airplane.
I could be lower if you can do the maintenance youself on a LAA permit. And you don’t have to maintain the weapon systems 
The main selling point of the Harrier is that mowing your private airstrip is much quicker. But you need very accommodating neighbors That said, given its speed, you can live in a remote place and be back to civilization in no time !!
Ps : you even have a radar to detect all the non transponding traffic ! Great for the UK.
@chrisparker used to fly them for real but he’s off sailing around the world
My original questions were obviously tongue in cheek. I think the DOC is roughly £40k/hour, according to figures published by the UK ministry of defence. Most fast jets are in that area, though an F16 would be about 1/2 the DOC of the Harrier.
Omg I absolutely loved flying these in the ArmA series of PC games. Not sure I would want an unarmed one though, as Harriers are perfect for blowing stuff up…
I am sure they flew what is called “Cloud Flying”? you can even go in formation on it with two way RT (loose on Compass/ASI and tight with DME-DME)
You don’t think they fly a published IAP, maybe a “no gyro PAR/SRA” but the runways tend to be 5km long but some old hardware did have ADFs, reason is climb gradients at approach speed on full power allows lower approach minima down to ground surface (plus a radar altimeter) and usually their extended flight path is obstacles free 10km away from the threshold, you need that for a long low-energy visual approach
My guess is that shipboard aircraft quite commonly fly in IMC but don’t always file a flight plan with the local authority even when flying to a nearby pasture to visit friends and refuel.
