I can't agree with the constant drone of "the sky will fall in if we don't have Nimrod"; quite frankly it won't.
The loss of MRA4 started with the ill-conceived idea of refurbing a 1st generation large jet aircraft and not realising what was involved. Secondly, at the turn of the millenium, when the knives were out to reduce the numbers the half-witted idea of putting an MX15 on it was devised for the overland role (fully supported by an ex kipper man who was now CinC - nepotism in the same way as you are all accusing the FJ 3 & 4 stars). The amount of money we spent putting the Nimrod over Iraq and Afg, we could have procured about half a dozen Predator sqns (and prevented a tragic accident).
If we hadn't selected the MRA4 and if we hadn't invented a job for an MPA that it wasn't designed for then I suspect we would still have a MPA capability right now.
And finally, I'm pretty sure that most airline pilots don't give it a second thought that there is no LRSAR cover in the UK, so stop getting all mawkish and move on.
iRaven