Inside Nimrod MRA4
 

Top quote from that article:

But the tiny size of the platform's galley is a cause of concern to the test team, which could one day be called upon to demonstrate the aircraft's maximum 14h endurance. As one RAF officer notes with alarm: "How are you supposed to prepare a decent curry using this?" Unless this is sorted by 2009, the Nimrod community's reputation as a "formation eating club" could be in danger!

The slimming route to ASTOR for the crews perhaps? :E

Glad to see the order being confirmed. At least some things are headed in the right direction.

Oh, what a beautiful cockpit! What a dream for IRTs! And is that a NWS wheel I spy on the co-pilot's side? Luxury...

Yep....on both sides now!

Well on the basis that I've flown most versions of the Nimrod and have the A320 series on my licence I reckon I could get a CCQ on that.

YS

My brother is not going to be happy. Apparently he's one of the kipper fleet's pilots with the healthiest appetite.

;)

CCQ? Whatever is that?

"Common Crew Qualification" It enables you to fly a 757/767 or an A320/330 on the basis of a differences course as they are treated as a common type. The MRA4 flight deck photo looks very "Airbus" but we all know that there's a "Comet" lurking underneath!

YS

Slightly more eye pleasing than the old Smiths knobs and dials.....

But one thing the F/E did was to keep an extra pair of eyes looking in and out ......... saved my bacon a few times on those long dark nights not talking to anybody.

I am curious though, why did they get rid of the F/E when the lesson from the civvie world is now you need 4 pilots to do what 2 and an F/E did?:confused:

Still give it a few years and it will smell right!:E

Up the 120th!

Alwayz

I believe that they call it progress!
:ugh:

Oh The Gorilla, isn't that just sour grapes? You said it wouldn't fly <well it has> and the govt in its infinate wisdom wants to buy some. Now the money has already been spent, I'd like to see some return on investment. Yours and mine.

I fully agree with you ALWAYZINIT, with the exception of the comment about "Still give....", I don't agree with that at all!

Will these designers never learn.... it's electronics for electronics sake, the three crew setup has and always be much more efficient and safer to operate.

Cheers, FD :ok:

Flight Detent don’t blame the designers; it was the Mod Bods who specified ‘off the shelf’ avionics and the crew complement. Why not congratulate the integration design team for making it all work and still be usable by two pilots. An Airbus EFIS talking to a Smiths/Boeing FMS, and controlling via French Navy fighter autopilot; that is more than most civil updates could cope with. Then consider that they shoehorned all of it into a ‘Comet’ Flight Deck; not bad for 60 years of maturity.

As a matter of something ‘being right’ if it ‘looks right’; compare the MRA4 flight deck with the updated C5 flight deck in the discussion on the C5 accident in the rumours and news section.

There is still a third seat there, just nothing to operate! I also believe BAE are operating it with 3 'up the front'. As has already been pointed out, it was the MoD/RAF who specified 2 man flight deck for cost saving...

"Will these designers never learn.... it's electronics for electronics sake, the three crew setup has and always be much more efficient and safer to operate."

It's also interesting (in a boring sort of way) that whenever electronic or computerized systems need to poll results to detect an error, they require 3 or more outputs, otherwise when it's just A versus B, there is no way of knowing which one is erroneous. How many crews have benefited from the F/E's largely independent input?

Two’s in remember the analogy with points on a graph; one is just a point, two is a straight line, three is a curve, and four is an utter mess. But that’s not the reason why a dual/dual configuration (four outputs) is better; with such a systems arrangement it can vote the bad system out and still carry on with the redundancy of three ‘monitored’ systems. If only human systems could be monitored in the same way – but even with four crew members, the probability of them all failing at the same time could be similar to that of half of the electronics failing; ergo more black boxes.