British Future MPA

[OafOrfUxAche]

Potential customers exist in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, Amador says

Even the industry man accepts that he'd be wasting his time trying to flog his aircraft to us or any European country. British Future MPA? Never going to happen.

[Genstabler]

Activity at last on Future UK MPA?
For the last couple of days there has been, what appears to be, a DC3 with a MAD boom trundling in straight lines at low level up and down North Yorkshire. Is this a trial of a possible Nimrod replacement? Or is it something to do with Google mapping?
This is, of course, a serious question!

[ORAC]

See here.
Basler BT-67 reg C-FTGI

[Genstabler]

Thanks Orac; that's the feller.

[Gene Genie]

NOTAMed this week, carrying out aerial survey work.

[polyglory]

PICTURES: India's second P-8I makes flight debut, as testing advances

Why are we not going down this road?

[A4scooter]

Polyglory - because we have politicians in all parties who don't care and would rather spend money on foreign aid, supporting the feckless, paying for the 25% of social housing in London occupied by people not born in the UK etc etc.
Apologies - rant over

[Jayand]

Or maybe because the Government has decided that it's not paying billions for
an insurance policy that we are never going to need, not when every other dept is cutting by record ammounts.

[Heathrow Harry]

Yorkshire Exploration | Rathlin

probably for these guys - they were flying geophyics in Ireland recently as well

[A4scooter]

Jayand - you could use the same argument with a Trident replacement and I appreciate money is tight but the Nimrod was more than a MPA/ASW aircraft with its extensive use as an ISTAR platform in Afghanistan, anti piracy patrols in the Gulf region and more importantly it SAR role.
New Zealand, Spain, Portugal, Canada, Norway, Ireland and Malta etc all keep a MPA capability and I can't believe all these countries are wrong.
Maybe its humanitarian / law enforcement role makes a MPA requirement an essential asset we should not be without.

[Wensleydale]

PICTURES: India's second P-8I makes flight debut, as testing
advances

Why buy one from the Indians when the one from the cowboys did not work?

[Jayand]

Scooter, my argument about insurance is aimed at trident replacement, which was one of the leading arguments for keeping MPA.

As for Istar role in Afghan, it was a stop gap that went on far too long and now they have other platforms doing the job.

SAR is the only real issue and littoral Asuw, I suspect a very cheap and limited capability
Ac covering these two roles is about all you have any hope of getting. Imo.

[A4scooter]

Jayand - Surrounded by some of the busiest shipping lanes in the world and a huge EEZ to Police I think we are in agreement and an aircraft with the ability to patrol and assist with SAR is an asset we should have.

[Charlie Luncher]

Jayand
Can you tell me the other assets that can complete all the ISTAR roles of the Multimission large aircraft such as the Nimrod overland and water??
Charlie sends

[Jayand]

That isn't what I said, and no not on an open forum!

[QTRZulu]

Jayand - Not to turn this into a pi55ing contest as what has been done has been done and there is no point in rehashing old arguments, but your claims that it was a stop gap are somewhat wide of the mark.

If you had ever flown it, you would know that what we did in theatre was an extension to a number of existing roles that had been carried out for years before hand. I admit we got some new kit, but that just replaced some of the old role fit kit we had.

So, to say it was a stop gap is not really that accurate. Its more a matter of the platform was the best choice for the job at hand and it is only now, several years later that a 'better platform' has been introduced, which by and large uses the same kit we used 5 years ago!

[Jayand]

The use of a Nimrod doing overland EO ops was in existence before Iraq or Afghan however, it was an add on and not a main role.
Ambition remained to have a more dedicated platform in place, in the mean time and for longer than was needed the Nimrod soldiered on.
That role has been happily been taken on by another platform and any new MPA would not need to be equiped for it.

[Roland Pulfrew]

For longer than necessary

Er, No. There wasn't anything to replace MR2 until its recent UOR replacement!

any new MPA would not need to be equiped for it.

Which sort of flies in the face of CAS's suggestion that new platforms need to be multi-role rather than role specific. When you look at the systems that were fitted to the MR2 (and without reopening an old debate, the MRA4) lots of roles could be accomodated in a single platform providing Defence with a lot more options. Personally I can't think of any platform that was as multi-role as the Nimrod.

[Jayand]

Somebody should have gone to specsavers, those rose tinted specs need replacing.

[tucumseh]

it was an add on and not a main role

This, and similar comments about operating intent and use, gets to the nub of the problem.

Very few of these "add ons" were reflected in the Build Standard, and hence Safety Case, and the longer it took to accept this the more difficult and expensive it became to regress. It is invariably cheaper in the long run just to do the job properly in the first place.