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, 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.

[Milarity]

Anyone seen Wensley?

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

[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

[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.

[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]

nimrod awe

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]

You are a bit late!

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!