MR4A slips right

[maninblack]

In my limited two years working on Nimrod 2000 I can give you my unbiased opinion. The original cock-ups were deliberate empire building by BAe Warton.

For example, the electrical systems design work was carried out by the Airbus team at Filton. Now the airbus team are past masters of "not invented here" and "we don't do it like that." but they did get things sorted out very quiickly and according to spec....the spec being to use off the shelf equipment on the aircraft here possible.

Here is a simple example. We offered around thirty products that were in service on similar aircraft such as C17, the Airbus family etc. The fitted the space envelope and met the design requirement. they were added to the drawing after the engineers checked competitors for similar equipment. The drawings went up to Warton for sign off. Warton came back with a "competitive tender" in which, for no clear reason, they had taken a decision to alter the dimensions of every unit on the aircraft so that instead of bidding off the shelf equipment we had to bid new designs, with tooling costs running into the national debt of central Africa. The original cost of out equipment was only UK£36K for the entire fleet, by the time I left we had spent over £100K answering daft questions about the kit before we had to start a redesign. The spec then included questions such as "Will it work submerged in seawater and kerosene?" This is fair enough except the kit is in the cockpit mounted over the pilot's head. If it is submerged in anything the aircraft has already crashed and sunk or has suffered such a catastrphic fuel cell failure that the cockpit is now six feet deep in Esso Blue and the crew have disolved. This aircraft has been cocked up by the Eurofighter mentality of signing a cheap and cheerful contract then writing a star trek spec. and then demanding that everyone invent new technologies to meet it. I am so glad to be out of it now.