Before I continue, I'm not after any information considered sensitive by anyone about the R1...I'm just curious about the history of the fleets.
However, given that the R1 spent most of its time in service alongside the MR2 I wondered how much engineering and contractor support from the MR2's operations was shared by the R1 fleet? Was airframe servicing done by a common pool of engineers etc? Were Nimrod airmframe operations considered totally different or were the R1s a "mini-fleet" within the MR2 world?
I guess that leads to my second question about how similar, or different, were the two airframes? I'm not talking about what's inside, just the structures. I know some of the R1s were built as R1s whereas the Nimrods were Comets first etc. Were they radically different when it came to their structures?