I was also on the AEW Trials Team from the start of the Tials Team Comet for about 2.5 years. The early Nimrod 3 airframes (DB1 , 2, AND 3?) were in New Assembly being chopped up to accommodate the scanners and we were in Flight Sheds on the other side of the field. (sometimes quite a hostile place if you were non union which by and large we were not.
As far as I was concerned my remit was A.E.W. Trials Planning involving RSRE Bedford, RAF Boulmer, Buchan, and the R.N. Fast Training Boats out of Hull.
When I arrived the system seemed to be set up for Co Prime Contractors between M.E.A.S.L. and BAe. At no stage in the time I was there was M.O.D. involved in anything and I don't even think we ever had any M.O.D. representatives flying on board the Comet. In fact I'm not even sure we would have had a spare seat on the trials that I was involved with.
Things may have changed when the DB1 e.t.c. were flying in terms of who was on board but I doubt Marconi or BAe would have accepted any M.O.D. interference into who was in charge. It was always a BAe flight deck and Nav, two radiation monitors (BAe again) and the Trials Team (at the time all recruited from G.E.C. and transferred to M.E.A.S.L)
ps M.E.A.S.L. =Marconi Elliot Avionic Systems Limited.
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