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Calling Kipper Fleet veterans - Nimrod query!

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Calling Kipper Fleet veterans - Nimrod query!

Old 14th Jun 2017, 17:07
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Currency could also refer to Jacko wanting to use F and G size sonos from the dark ages, along with the 40 year old StingRay.

Just because we have some old tat in stock it doesn't make it automatically relevant to the next decade of Maritime warfare.
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Old 14th Jun 2017, 17:19
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Thread drift but that reminds me of this: http://w3.uwyo.edu/~jimkirk/guidance.html
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Old 14th Jun 2017, 18:31
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Originally Posted by camelspyyder
Currency could also refer to Jacko wanting to use F and G size sonos from the dark ages, along with the 40 year old StingRay.

Just because we have some old tat in stock it doesn't make it automatically relevant to the next decade of Maritime warfare.
Hmmm. Saab don't think that F and G sized buoys are from the dark ages, and nor do Ultra. And indeed it makes sense to me that with miniaturisation, etc. you can pack the same capability into a half-sized buoy as you used to get in a full-sized A size buoy……

Nor is is really fair to describe StingRay as 'old tat'. Lots of ASW folk seem to rate the Mod 1 version very highly, and Norway selected it in preference to the Eurotorp MU90 AND the Mk 54, which were rated in that order……

In any event, the fact that we are acquiring only nine MPAs (nine!) would suggest that we are not living in an era unconstrained by cost, so being able to use existing weapon and buoy stocks would seem to be a potentially sensible cost saving, had we adopted a slightly less supine negotiating position.
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Old 14th Jun 2017, 19:02
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Jackonico,

Have you factored in the cost and time of adapting P-8 for either G-size buoys or Stingray in your analysis? Or the proximity of the Stingray out of service date?
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Old 14th Jun 2017, 19:19
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I suspect that had Boeing thought that it was necessary to win the order, rather than feeling that they had it in the bag, then integration might have been done at company cost.
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Old 14th Jun 2017, 20:17
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Jackonicko,

I sense that some in the Defense Industry are trying to denigrate P8 in order to try and bolster their own product. I won't comment anymore on that, other than to say it's easy to make an MPA look good....... on powerpoint. And 'good enough is good enough', only if it can meet a required a delivery timeline. The Defense Industry is very good at promising on-time, on-budget products via shiny powerpoint slides.

I think the size of buoys is a red herring; it's relevant only if you are short of space/weight.

The rest of your questions need answers that can't come via this forum. You are correct that multi-statics is a broad term and not unique to P8; however, the P8's multi-static capability will be unique.

There's lots of revolutionary capability inbound and, without a full read-in, it would difficult to fathom when viewed through a 'cold war lens'. I sense that the SAAB sales pitch you've received was delivered from a team with such a lens. I may be wrong.

PN has such a lens and everything he has said is entirely correct as to how the Nimrod was operated in certain ASW roles. His arguments don't carry across to the modern epoch due to new technology that Nimrod didn't have.

4 hours at 1200nm was a key performance measure at initial test. It met the requirement.
I should have stated "4 hours operating low level at 1200nm was a key performance measure at initial test. It met the requirement.


What was the driver, then?
This is an open source article from 4 years ago, the quote below is from the article:

http://www.militaryaerospace.com/art...-upgrades.html

Relatively high altitudes for the P-8A are to enhance communications range with large-area buoy fields, as well as to enhance coverage from other onboard non-acoustic sensors.
Anyway, I think I've hit the limit of what should be said on this forum. I wish you the best with your article and it would be great if you post a link to it on here when complete.

There are always two sides to every story, but I can only emphasize my previous sentiment that the P-8A is a fantastic aircraft that will be a superb asset for UK Defence - and in very short order. We're blessed to be getting it. Finally, I wish SAAB all the best marketing their product to allied nations around the World.
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Old 15th Jun 2017, 05:20
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^^ nice post.
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Old 15th Jun 2017, 06:08
  #48 (permalink)  
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BL, I was not drawing any inference on modern systems simply that you need to know the relative location of one buoy to the next.

Jumping further back in past, at Jutland the relative position of the ship's could not be determine with complete accuracy as there was no time synchronization.

Today there are many means to determine relative positioning because it is essential, not a weaknesses as was the case with the older systems - note: I never mentioned the N-word.
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Old 15th Jun 2017, 08:14
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I never mentioned the N-word.
Was it the S-word in your day PN? Shackleton or Sunderland?
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Old 15th Jun 2017, 08:39
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JN

P-8 MAY have been selected without an exhaustive enough evaluation of alternatives, and especially of cheaper alternatives
What makes you think they weren't? Surely though, the most important thing is/was do they meet your requirement?

If the MoD direction was MOTS/COTS; what would the impact be on "paper" aircraft? Would a paper aircraft meet the "time" part of Performance/Cost/Time?

that the P-8 would not be an even better (and more cost-effective and value-for-money) solution were it to be able to use existing UK sonobuoy stocks ... and by being able to use the apparently highly regarded StingRay torpedo
Possibly true, but then you have to factor in the cost of integrating new launchhers, buoys and weapons onto a platform; how much does it cost to carry out the software mods, test them, complete separation trials and clear a weapon/system onto a military aircraft? How long has it taken to get new weapons onto Typhoon? Lots of software there, so I guess it won't be cheap. Then of course you are potentially operating a bespoke fleet that differs from your key Allies also operating the P-8; how does that impact upon through-life costs?

Of course the original SAAB Swordfish, particularly when the UK started their programme was a twin-turboprop, not a twin-jet.

Finally, be careful of senior officers pushing their own agendas; some aren't the best informed.
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Old 15th Jun 2017, 11:35
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RP thankfully N came before S, sadly S then followed. As for hard work I think the Nimrod won and also more rewarding. The other, with 1940s kit served far too long and frequently ineffective. It worked well with a cooperating target or if told where to look which rather defeated the object.
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Old 15th Jun 2017, 16:03
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Bloodhound and Roland - thank you for your intelligent and erudite responses - they were very compelling.

Thank you too for framing them so kindly and carefully - despite being in response to damn fool questions from a painfully ignorant journo.

I really am most grateful.

J
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Old 23rd Jun 2017, 13:19
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920ATC on Nimrod...

Originally Posted by Doptrack
Think that the CTS still had 920ATC. Acoustics system replaced by then with Ultra kit.
Thanks - so the CTS (=central tactical system) still matched the original fit as I know from
S. Lavington's great book on Elliott Computers:

https://books.google.de/books?id=Dhk...%20cts&f=false

As these are my hobby (see e.g. Programmer Electronic Control) - I'd
love to see one of them having survived ;-)

Thanks again,

Erik.
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Old 25th Jun 2017, 22:50
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Originally Posted by baigar
Thanks - so the CTS (=central tactical system) still matched the original fit as I know from
S. Lavington's great book on Elliott Computers:

https://books.google.de/books?id=Dhk...%20cts&f=false

As these are my hobby (see e.g. Programmer Electronic Control) - I'd
love to see one of them having survived ;-)

Thanks again,

Erik.

Sort of correct in that yes the 920 ATC was still fitted but, when we went to the colour Tac Display this included it's own Pentium based computing system (high spec then) which offloaded all of the Display processing from the 920 meaning that in general the system ran a lot more smoothly.


I am sure that there are plenty of former Tac Navs around who can remember the display issues we had as time went on with the old circular CRT.
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Old 26th Jun 2017, 07:28
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Circular Display / Avionics...

I can imagine, that the Pentium based replacement was a substantial improvement. I only
found a very video on YouTube showing the circular CRT - this was really huge and I guess
the 920ATC controlled it as a X-Y-disply and this absorbed most of its performance?

Are there any better images out there of the station with the old display and/or maybe and
avionics bay photographs?
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Old 26th Jun 2017, 10:15
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Originally Posted by baigar
the 920ATC
Ah yes, "ATC" stood for Advanced Technology Computer...

Several years ago a colleague and I spent an interesting lunchtime talking to a bunch on new computing grads, telling them the joys of 18 bit computing systems, programming in machine code and doing it while the system was actually running.....
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Old 26th Jun 2017, 12:57
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Bloodhound Loose,

I've been thinking (always dangerous!) and I'm not sure that the Saab folk have a Cold War lens (I'm happy to accept that I do, and even that my filter of what they and others say may give and undue Cold War influence). They do bang on about the company's competence in modern post-Cold War ASW, and especially about the fact that the company (in the shape of its new Kockums subsidiary) builds "the world’s most modern submarine".

I've also been thinking about MAC, high level ASW, etc.

The Multi-Static Active Coherent (MAC) sonobuoy processing programme is extremely new, it began developmental testing in 2012 and operational testing in early FY13 (on P-3Cs, with P-8A testing deferred). My understanding is that it uses a mix of source and receiver buoys, employing non-coherent sources to produce the sounds that reflect off submarine targets (including multiple pings, optimized waveforms, and various ping durations); these echoes are then detected by receiver buoys. US Navy papers seem to indicate that it is primarily intended for large-area active acoustic searches for threat submarines.

I’m not sure as to how the US MAC concept differes from the Multistatic Active (MSA) that has been undergoing tests by a global community of military, industry and research communities for decades, but whose operational results have been modest, or at least not entirely robust in all situations and environments.

With this in mind I would ask a couple of questions:

Firstly, are we looking at a technology that does represent the future (though perhaps not as it is in its current form) but that is immature – like guided missiles were in the 1960s, when we raced to ditch the gun for air-to-air combat in favour of promising semi-active radar homing missiles….. which weren't actually operationally viable for another ten years or more?

Secondly, are we looking at a technology that will or should be augmenting existing ASW technologies (especially passive acoustic detection, which has been making great strides) rather than entirely replacing them?

Has the P-8A’s platform ethos and CONOPs been too closely and tightly based on MAC as a universal ASW panacea – rather than seeing Multistatic as one tool in the ASW toolbox (perhaps the most useful one?), but one that should be used alongside well-practiced and proved passive and active methods? Would the latter approach not mitigate against a medium-to-hgh level CONOPS?

Or are we expecting ROE that would allow one to engage a target based on a single source (acoustics) alone? P-8A has no MAD to confirm a target’s position, and from altitude, and against a sub-surface target EO/IR is presumably unlikely to be any more or less helpful than radar.

The P-8 enthusiasts always say that: “Operating at medium to high altitude maximizes sensor performance" I can see that is true of radar, and of ESM, but it isn’t true of EO/IR (where being below cloud is surely necessary?), it isn’t true of MAD and in acoustics, altitude surely brings greater possibilities of RF interference?

I’m also unconvinced that you can get buoys or weapons into the water as quickly or as accurately from medium-to-high altitude, nor that this consideration is no longer valid, and is purely Cold War thinking – though I’m open to being convinced on all these fronts.

I’m also wondering about the implications of dropping sonobuoys and weapons through layers of precipitation, variable winds and busy airspace…..

Questions, questions……
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Old 9th Feb 2019, 19:15
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Hi, probably some people are following this thread who have been on board the Nimrod in the
1990ties? Over the years I restored some of the vintage Ferranti inertial navigation systems
and among them also two FIN1012s. Recently I got hands on a panel I guess being the
original Nimrod panel (3854/37714) I guessed having been used on the FIN1012:



Of course I know most of the functions from the FIN1010 and the accompanying, very similar
panel as it was used on Tornado, but this Nimrod panel has some additional features I'd like
to know some details on (esp. related to the upper turn knob):

(1) What is shown if PP2 is selected (obviously this means present-position-2, but what is
the second present position?)?
(2) What does the panel show if the letters I, G or M are selected?

As I discovered during my repairs, the Cal alignment takes several hours on the FIN1012 (way
more than on a FIN1010 of Tornado) but it does not update the cal values - so is there some
trick or does anybody know what has to be selected (e.g. on the D1/D2 switch) to get
the values updated?

Would be great to hear on some experiences from actual aircrew on those systems, too!

Best wishes,

Erik.

P.S. If interested, you may look on my somewhat older video on the restored Tornado stuff:
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Old 10th Feb 2019, 08:20
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Afraid I cannot help, but I'm delighted you are doing this. I've just watched the Tornado video.
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Old 10th Feb 2019, 16:25
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Originally Posted by drustsonoferp
Afraid I cannot help, but I'm delighted you are doing this. I've just watched the Tornado video.
Thanks for the positive words. Indeed I want to preserve as much as possible
from this outstanding technology. I even filed a request at the Air Historic Branch
of the RAF to get some of the documentation released - but no response so
far. My fear is, that most stuff will get lost in the next years!
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