He held senior command roles in the RAF and was the author of a noted technical report that evaluated the performance and tactics of jet combat during the Korean War.

[3] He was stationed at March Air Force Base in California where he flew the Lockheed F-80 Shooting Star[3] and became the first serving RAF pilot to fly the North American F-86 Sabre.

[2] On 13 February 1952, Harbison reported to Colonel Harrison Thyng, commander of the 4th Fighter-Interceptor Wing at Kimpo Air Base, South Korea where he was assigned to the 335th Fighter Squadron.

[7] After attending "Clobber College", a program where newly arrived pilots flew training sorties with experienced instructors, Harbison once again found himself flying combat missions.

[2] That the F.86 has been able to achieve so marked a superiority over the Mig in air combat is due to the higher quality of the human material manning it, a combination of aggressiveness, sound tactical thinking and the ability of its pilots to fly and fight the F.86 to its maximum limits.

Following graduation, Harbison served in eastern Scotland as commander of RAF Leuchars, the most northerly air defence station in the United Kingdom.

He then attended the Canadian National Defence College in Kingston, Ontario followed by a tour as Group Captain Operations at RAF Fighter Command headquarters.

[2] After retiring from the RAF on 31 March 1977,[13] Harbison joined British Aerospace (BAe) and returned to the United States as vice president of their Government Programs Office in Washington, D.C.

[3] Nearly fifty years after its original publication, Harbison's report found new life as a training guide included in the computer game, MiG Alley.

[2] Impressed by the mix of technical and tactical analysis that applied just as much to a 1999 flight simulation as to real jet combat in 1952, one reviewer described Harbison's report as, "the best game strategy guide I've ever read.