MRA4 - hope yet?
The Chief of the Air Staff (CAS) Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Dalton had the opportunity to fly on the first production Nimrod MRA4 aircraft on a recent visit to Warton. During a very successful 90 mins flight CAS saw each element of the mission system in action and even experienced first-hand, the agile handling of the aircraft from the flight deck.
On landing, CAS said: "It was a great flight and very, very useful for me to understand precisely what has been done to develop the capability and to make the aeroplane basically a weapon system of choice for the role we’re going to do. It does seem that actually the aeroplane is now ready to go into operational service, both from the point of view of the aircrew up the front and also the operators in the rear part. They understand the systems, the systems are now working and therefore the quality of what we’re going to get. Once we’ve got our own people properly trained it should be really good."