Nimrod AEW " What Island ? "
Nimrod AEW displayed no map data at its consoles whatsoever (a lack of processing power - also an ex-Shackleton flight-deck wing commander said it was not needed as the Shackleton did not have a computer map). Only processed track data was displayed - neither was basic radar data available to the crew (The track symbol possessed a little graphic that showed if radar data was involved in determining track position). Therefore, the operator had to have full confidence in the tracks that were displayed - yeah, right. A rudimentary map was available by attaching a perspex engraved map over the PPI using Blu-Tac and the picture slewed underneath to match a computer generated reference point. Changing range scales was not a quick or easy process! It is not difficult to understand why the island was not seen by the Nimrod crew (although stationary objects such as oil riggs and land masses produced tracks that flitted across the screen at 47 Kts - these blamed by GEC on road traffic. The tracks produced by land would normally swamp the system and cause the computer to crash within a few seconds - this is why Nimrod could not point the radar beam towards any coastline while within a range of 120 nmi and the crew had to use significantly large radar blanking sectors. 47 kt oil riggs continued to be a problem as they resembled slow moving helicopters).