Nimrod AEW radar operators needed!!

[TheVulcan]

I'm writing a book on the Nimrod called Nimrod Rise and Fall. I'm an author, Aviation Books and Mystery Novels By Tony Blackman (http://www.blackmanbooks.co.uk), and by chance as a test pilot I flew 40 of the 46 we built at Avros. I'm doing it because I want everyone to know what a wonderful job the aircraft did and what a huge gap it leaves. I'm putting in a lot of aircrew stories of the things the aircraft did and the final chapters are about the Nimrod AEW and MR4. My problem is that there has been pages and pages of 'scuttlebutt' about the AEW aircraft's Mission System Avionics but no first hand description of the testing of the radar and how good and bad it was. I'm looking for actual operators of the AEW's MSA and if there is an operator who can compare its performance and the AWACS at the time that would be even better.

[dakkg651]

Can't help I'm afraid Tony.

Would be grateful, however, if you could let us know, on Prune, the date of publication so we can order our copies. :ok:

[Milarity]

I'm sure our own regular contributor will be along with a bad joke or two once he gets out of bed.

[Wensleydale]

Yawn... What's up?

[Fortissimo]

TheVulcan

Please check your PMs.

[The Old Fat One]

Was there not a National Audit Office report dedicated to the Nimrod AEW. I would have thought it would have had a bit more than scuttlebutt in it????

You'll have seen this

BAe Nimrod AEW 3 (http://www.spyflight.co.uk/nim%20aew.htm)

[Pontius Navigator]

I would have thought scuttlebutt would be more enlightening - like picking up trains and cars.

Just think, could have had a Sentinel capability 20 years earlier.

[bvcu]

seem to recall us very regularly putting up targets at the time from that big field in wiltshire, but dont know anything more than the 'talk' at the time

[Darwinism]

What sad reading it makes.

BAe Nimrod AEW 3 (http://www.spyflight.co.uk/nim%20aew.htm)

[Jetex_Jim]

An interesting article. The closing paragraph:
Amazingly, the collective memory of the Nimrod AEW farce seems to have been completely ignored when it was decided to replace the Nimrod MR2 with the Nimrod MRA4. Astonishingly many of the same mistakes of attempting to once again adapt an airframe designed in the 1940's, have been repeated for the second time - but more on the MRA4 farce at a later date and I only hope the final bill this time around is less than £1 billion squandered on the Nimrod AEW 3.

And there are those who think of UK defence as being underfunded?

[CeeBee49]

Not an AEW Nimrod man, sorry - but would add that I was flying with 8 Sqn AEW Shacks in the North Sea in 1986 when we were asked several times by the Nim crew out on a trial to tell them where an aircraft was. That seemed to be the measure of it at the time. A case of the blind leading the blinder. :cool:

[Wasser]

I'm putting in a lot of aircrew stories of the things the aircraft did


Perhaps for a different perspective you should also ask for crewchief/groundcrew anecdotes. You'd sell more copies as it would appeal to a larger audience and be funnier (probably).

Closest I got to an AEW was volunteering and being selected as a Flying Air Radar Technician (FART) even although I was Nav Inst. Never heard any more though.

[Wensleydale]

Closest I got to an AEW was volunteering and being selected as a Flying Air Radar Technician (FART) even although I was Nav Inst. Never heard any more though.


Lucky escape - you would have been the busiest person on board. The initial plans were for the mission crew to carry out their own airborne maintainance - however, the computer crashed so often that an airborne technician was added to the crew to try to keep the system going (usually a forlorn hope - the computer crashed whenever the radar beam was pointed towards land. GEC blamed road traffic but if this was the case then there must have been some big rush hours on the Shetland Islands!). You would need to take your own camping stool to sit in the cabinet area. You would also have kept slipping in the wretched silicon oil that leaked everywhere down the back - the aircraft steps were lethal in the wet! Much noise insulation had been stripped from the rear of the aircraft to save weight (ISTR 6,000lb overweight) so you would also have been deaf by now.

I've still got my FRCs somewhere - I must look them out.

[Wasser]

Thanks for that Wensleydale. Every cloud has a silver lining and knowing this now I'm glad I didn't become an old FART.

Would I have got flying pay though :)

[stbd beam]

boing .

[hartie]

new to forums, but spent a long time on nimrods specifically aew at woodford with db1 through 3 and production models.
could have some usefull background on the flight trials results for yr book!

hartie

[Doptrack]

Book was published Oct 2011!

[Pontius Navigator]

Never too late for a reprint, especially for eBook readers.

[Geehovah]

I did a couple of test sorties in a Tornado F2 "controlled" by the Nimrod AEW. I picked up the target on a "Y" list Foxhunter before the Nimrod saw it!

[Wensleydale]

I did a couple of test sorties in a Tornado F2 "controlled" by the Nimrod
AEW. I picked up the target on a "Y" list Foxhunter before the Nimrod saw
it!


The final competition between the Nimrod and the E-3A was decided after both aircraft were flown on similar trial profiles (although on different days). The Tornado F2s were needed as targets for both sorties. One of the Nimrod Joint Trials Unit fighter controllers rang Coningsby to arrange for the aircraft to be flown. He was put onto Sqn Ldr Ops:

"No, you can't have them - it will take our entire flying program for two days".

The aircraft were still not allocated to the trial despite the assurance of the FC that it was very important and that he had been instructed to get the aircraft "from high level". The FC then rang our trials people in MOD PE to report that Coningsby were refusing to release the F2s for the trials.

Twenty minutes later, the Flt Lt FC received a phone call - it was from the Station Commander at Coningsby who was ringing personally to apologise and ask where and when the F2s were wanted.

In the same vein, the trials team needed two radar consoles at SOC Boulmer for the duration of the trial. At first the consoles were refused because Exercise "Mallet Blow" was being held over the same period and the consoles were needed for that. We duly received an info copy of the signal that was sent 30 minutes later authorising us to have priority of the consoles over Boulmer staff with the final sentance "You have permission to cancel Mallet Blow if it proves too difficult".

It is not often that you received top cover at this level, but it was nice to have when it was!

[smujsmith]

I was/am one of the few lucky? holders of a Q-ANEW-A and was one of the 6 who did the first Nimrod AEW ground crew course. It consisted of a standard Nimrod course at Kinloss, followed by a Nimrod course at BAe Woodford, followed by a "differences" course again at BAe Woodford. A posting to Waddington ensued and a short term of employment ensued before my re deployment to the mighty transport base in Wiltshire. If the OP needs to get a story or two from the flying side I recommend contacting a certain S/Ldr "Jethro" Tull, if you can. He told me this story ( remember he told me this because he was trying to explain to mere ground crew the problems they were having with the radar, and doubted my ability to understand):

It was decided that Nimrod AEW would fly off with the E3A AWACS, as an attempt was made to set a "current" standard the still operational Shackleton AEW was to take part as well. Off they all go out over the North Sea trying to find a boat (a particular boat). Shackleton calls in on frequency, "boat located on radar, just behind the island at 3 miles".

E3A " roger, island noted and looking".

Nimrod AEW " What Island ? "

Say no more !

[5aday]

I worked for Marconi Elliot (MEASL) as part of the AEW Trials Team based in Woodford in the six portacabins on the airfield side of Flight Sheds.
The initial aeroplane we had was Comet 4 XW626, and in my time we
had DB1, 2, and 3 which were ex squadron aeroplanes being modified in New Assembly on the other side of Woodford aerodrome.
At the time I flew as part of the Trials team (5)with an Aerospace flight deck(3)
a couple of BAe technicians and a couple of radiation monitoring staff (4 max -because of seats) At that time we mainly used RAE Bedford for co-operating airborne targets and the RN Fast Training Boats out of Portland though the former (Bedford) used to close at 17:00 and we occasionally had to night stop their crew at Woodford if our trials were delayed and went into the late afternoon.
It wasn't all doom and gloom though there were plenty of people continually knocking the AEW from day 1.
The unions at Woodford didn't help things in the beginning of the project as Woodford operated a closed shop at the time and Marconi was none union.
All so long ago now.

[Wensleydale]

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).

[servodyne]

Wensleydale,
I was on the test team from the start, it wasn't just the back end that had problems! I remember passing paper messages to the Nav because the AMRICS (comms) had ground to a halt:ugh:!

[Wensleydale]

I remember passing paper messages to the Nav because the AMRICS (comms) had
ground to a halt.


AMRICS (Automatic Mission Radio and Intercomm Communications System ISTR - or was it "Airborne") was not that bad when I was with the JTU (I qualified as Op1 Comms just before the decision to can and so used it quite a bit). The problem with AMRICS was that you could not monitor more than one tactical intercom net without joining them all together! It was also very easy to run out of radios given that any operator could grab one without telling other crew members leading to loss of priority comms.

It would have been a comms nightmare had we gone down the Nimrod route (especially for us deaf ex-shack bods).

This was typical of the Nimrod AEW concept.... the mission system was packed with automatic features that were immature at the time, inflexible, and often did not work correctly (or in a timely manner). The result was that the operators very quickly lost confidence in the entire mission system. Meanwhile, the E-3, that used additional manpower on the aircraft rather than underpowered computers, possessed a much more satisfactory mature and usable system. The E-3 still has several automatic systems on board, but the human (when trained) system was much more accurate and therefore tactically astute. I often used the analagy of the longbow and the crossbow. Scientists/arms manufacturers love the crossbow with its fancy pulleys and levers and theoretical greater hitting power - however when you were up to your a*se in charging French cavalry then the simpler longbow was a much more effective weapons system.