Originally Posted by
pr00ne
Wensleydale,
"Was it the case that the afore mentioned Sgt Mulley was in the defence seat when the political decision was taken to buy the Nimrod AEW3?"
I do believe that you are right. At the time it was announced that the UK could not wait for NATO to make its mind up as it needed a replacement in place ASAP, so they went with the Nimrod AEW3 as the UK component of the NATO force rather than waiting for the NATO choice. That worked out well...
The preferred solution was for the Brits to pull out of the combined force (which was going to be in the UK with 24 aircraft) and have our own force of 6 E-3As leaving NATO with their 18 that eventually went to Geilenkirchen. However, with Union pressure, the Gov't asked UK manufacturing for their AEW proposals before buying American, knowing that there were no realistic solutions available. Unfortunately, there was another snap election and Labour came to power, and with the Govt in the unions pocket, the Labour Party ordered the Nimrod AEW3, which was actually originally demonstrated as a test bed for the Tornado F2 radar (the other one that didn't work). Having won the contract, GEC/Marconi went "GULP" until they realised that they had been given a costs plus 10% contract. The longer they got it wrong, then the more money they made.