davejb

You forgot one important point:-

The original Nimrod was basically a Comet airframe and the Comet first flew on 27 July 1949.

The name killed the concept!!

Is there some clever humour going on here that I'm completely missing? or is this to imply the ignorance of the average Clapham omnibus passenger on such matters?

Caz
 

and Air Seeker (RC-135) is basically a Boeing 367-80 that first flew on 14 May 1954. What is your point?

Cazatou, I think you will find that the only 'Nimrod' that was using a Comet airframe was the 'Canopus' currently enjoying life at Bruntingthorpe with the occasional run down the runway and this I believe from memory was to trial/demonstrate the feasability of using the comet design for an RAF aircraft, the Nimrods were completely new builds to start with.

Exrigger

The 2 prototype HS 801 Nimrods (XV147 with Spey engines and XV148 with Avon engines) were conversions of Civil Comets.

Exrigger, 'Canopus' had nothing (airframe-wise) to do with the Nimrod programme. It's a Comet 4C and was delivered straight from the production line to Boscombe Down as a Navigation and avionics trials aircraft.

At the risk of drifting further away due to responses to my post I will answer in reverse order:

BossEyed: Apologies, I knew that the Canopus was at Boscombe and did say from memory, mistakenly it appears, that I thought this was used for demonstrating the early nimrod concept before the two that Cazatou mentioned.

Cazatou: Again apologies, I was going from memory from way back to late 60s early 70s and did not remember those two, so I will amend my statement and say no production Nimrod was ever built and put into RAF Service using any Comet airframes and subsequently converted to MR2/R1/MRA4 (though no doubt someone will correct me on this point as well)

Exrigger,
You’re partially right, a boscombe Comet was used for Searchwater trails and was fitted with a large nose radome. Without checking I'm not sure which one it was though. :ok:

Wasn't that the one broken up at Farnborough a few years ago?

GBZ,
yes, reflecting the in depth knowledge of the vast majority of the British public.

davejb

"The Great British Public" (whose spending power is being squeezed every which way due to the state of the Nations finances) would certainly express surprise that the aircraft that you insist is a "must have" as a Maritime Patrol Aircraft is based on a design which first flew on 27 July 1949.

To put that into context; 32 days after the 1st flight of a Comet the prototype Vampire Night Fighter first flew on 28 August 1949. We do not base the UK's all weather Air Defence needs on a 62 year old design - so why should we do so in the case of an extremely limited order for Maritime Patrol Aircraft?

United Kingdom PLC is effectively hovering on the brink of bankruptcy - yet our Armed Forces are severely stretched by a conflict in Afghanistan where there is no Maritime threat.

In an Ideal World all things are possible - the World in which we live is far from ideal and the Country has to live within its means. Remember it was only 6 years ago that the UK finally paid off the debts accumulated during World War Two!!!

PS We still owe for World War 1.

Re XV147 & XV148
 

XV147 was purchased by BAE Systems in 1993, it was indeed sectioned at Farnborough with the Port wing and Fuselage from the nose to Rear Pressure Bulkhead taken to the BAE Warton site in Lancahire in support of what became the MRA4 project.
The interiour was fully stripped and converted to MRA4 standard with cockpit and mission system areas completed.
The wing center-box was removed to develop the technique used on all subsequent airframes to under go MRA4 conversion.
The nose radome was dug up from the golf course at Woodford and fitted to the aircraft. The last use for the airframe was to act as crew egress trials before it was finally cut up and road hauled off site 17/03/03 (The same day it was announced to chop the MRA4 from a 21 aircraft build down to only 9).

The wing was also used in support of the MRA4 project but was disposed of earlier than the fuselage because the all new wing of the MRA4 negated any benefit.

XV148 The fuselage and wings were used as fatigue rig test pieces in support of mk1r & MR2P, and have long since been scrapped, the only portion to remain is the cockpit section which is currently down South owned by the Author of the AirBritain publication covering the history of the Comet - Mike

Bob, sure you're not getting your Searchwaters and your AEWs mixed up?

XW626 was fitted with a large bulbous nose (and Nimrod fin top), but that was a concept demo aircraft for the well known success story that was NimWACS.

http://www.abpic.co.uk/images/images/1035725M.jpg

I'm not aware of any trials aircraft pre-XV147/148, as described by cazatou and mikealder.

The only other Comet I know of to have had any involvement in Nimrod was an airframe built specifically for cabin pressure test work in the water tank at Farnborough, after a simulated 100,000 flying hours the fuselage was taken to Woodford and used as a mock up to house the Nimrod MR1 as well as having wooden panier skirts fitted.
Once the above work was complete the airframe was used for smoke egress training by the Woodford Fire department.
In 96/97 the fuselage was moved to Warton and modified to MRA4 fit in way of flying controls/ hydraulics and used as the "Iron Bird" for endurance testing of the FCS, the cockpit section came from an ex AEW aircraft XV263 as the old Comet front end had quite a bit of structure missing - I can't remember the actual build number of the Comet it was something like 5402 - Mike

I certainly was, old age getting to me (or is it spending all day in the flight safety office:{)

Oh dear oh dear,
Cazatou -

Care to highlight which post of mine says Nimrod is a must have? Like, not just on this thread, but on ANY thread? Perhaps, when quoting me, you'd do me the service of ensuring I actually said whatever you say I did?
(In return I'll not post that you insist 30% of all fighter pilots should be gay, and 32 Sqn make GR4 squadrons look like the girl guides...keep misquoting me and the gloves are off pal!)

For anyone else who can't read without getting confused, I was commenting on Manccowboys assertion that the main issue with MRA4 was its name, which had been deeply tarnished by Afghanistan. I said that there was more than one problem - as well as the name being Nimrod the Brit public hadn't a clue anyway what Nimrods did, so they wouldn't give a damn about losing what they never knew they'd had. (I translate my original post, as some seem to have grasped my point incompletely, my apologies for overestimating the efficacy of the RAF's IQ testing at Biggin Hill).

On OTHER threads I have argued that the UK needs an MPA, I have never said that MPA should be an MRA4, (although I can't for the life of me see that cutting up MRA4's to buy something else instead is a brilliant idea frankly.)

Do try to keep up, there will be a test at the end.

Dave

Edit: By the way, many jet aircraft now regularly enjoy many decades of life - B707, 747, B-52, there are DC-3's still in use, ditto PBY-5's and a good many more. Provided the aircraft is either a new build of an old design, or has any 'fatigue prone' components replaced, there is no LOGICAL reason to replace an existing, proven design, unless you have a better design as an alternative. Nimrod based on Comet is a complete red herring, the MRA4 was not some hammered out compo tins glued to a 1940's airframe... had the Nimrod been completely rebuilt, ie completely new airframes (no more wings don't fit issues, rerouting of ducts, rethink of component layout to meet modern safety standars etc) then it would have been the best MPA in the world...just like MR1 and MR2 were.

Oh Dear

I do believe I upset him.
:sad:

No,
I rather expect you to be short on factual content actually. The usual response to completing misquoting and misrepresenting somebody else is to say 'sorry, I had been drinking', by the way.

Dave

I do not think they were cut up for that reason - they were cut up to prevent anyone trying to revive them in the future and to ensure that any future MPA (should one ever be needed) will be based on another platform, with as little customisation as possible. As long as there was acarcass lying around, someone would try and resurrect it, especially given the nose dome issue referred to elsewhere. Burying was clearly not enough last time around - this time its the shredder.

Just IMO of course.

GrahamO and Caztazou
 

"And in that single response you have demonstrated how little you actually understand. Exactly what airframe are you going to purchase that requires as little modification as possible? Please, do tell, 'cos I'm sure Boeing et al would love to know what you have in mind."

That was going to be my response. I could have argued that the concept of the fax is at least 150 years old, the telephone is at least as old, e-mail is the best part of 40 years old but because an aircraft concept is 'old' it's of no use. Oddly enough, the only people that espouse that idea are those that have f@ck all clue about that of which they spout.

I could point out that Caz is resident in country that isn't even an island and it still has an MPA fleet (and it's almost as old as Nimrod) but I don't hear him berating his host nation.

I then realised that I am just wasting my breath. Life is too short.

Crack on folks.