Originally Posted by
tucumseh
That was the original Government claim. It later admitted it could never be certified safe.
Do you have any evidence of that? I ask because at the time of the 2010 SDSR the first three aeroplanes were on the point of handover to the RAF (they would have entered servive within 90 days) and the RTS was ready for signing.
MRA4 was cancelled to fix a cash-flow problem. As has been shown many times, continuing with the MRA4 would (in overall cost terms) have been cheaper than the subsequent P8 procurement, and whilst I haven't seen the full P8 spec I am led to believe the overall mission capability of the MRA4 was significantly greater - especially when you consider that the MRA4 was equipped to take over the whole of the MR2 role (including all the non-sub-hunting and non-maritime roles) which I gather the P8 isn't.
PDR