I watched that Panorama programme on Nimrod AEW at the Civil Service Staff College whilst a student at the Joint Services
PR Course - so must have been about 84 - also in the room was the then DPR (RAF), Air Commodore, later AVM, Bobbie Robson. He chuckled and muttered his way through the programme - "Surely not", "Did I really say that?"! Clearly the Panorama teams had been fed some lines of investigation, which they had followed quite well