Nimrod - how many crew?
 

OK, the RAF website says of the MR2:

"two pilots and a flight engineer, two weapon systems officers (WSO) (tactical and routine), and a WSO who is the sensor and communications coordinator. He is, in turn, supported by a team of two ‘wet’ weapon systems operators (WSOps) and four ‘dry’ WSOps. The ‘wet’ team supervise the aircraft’s acoustic processors, which monitor active and passive sonobuoys, whilst the ‘dry’ team manage a range of radar and non-acoustic sensors, all of which are essential to delivering Nimrod’s full capability."

and says of the R1:

"The Nimrod R1 is operated by a four-man flight deck crew of two pilots, a flight engineer and a weapon systems officer, and an electronic reconnaissance crew of 24 reconnaissance- equipment operators commanded by a mission supervisor." (Though we believe this 'counts' one of the two ad hoc positions).

and of the MRA4:

"The MRA4 operating crew will consist of two pilots and eight mission crew members operating new state-of-the-art radar, Electronic Support Measures (ESM), electro-optic, acoustic and Magnetic Anomoly Detection (MAD) sensor systems."

Eight? Thought it was seven - Radar (+ MAD) and ESM (+ DASS) facing forward at the front, than three facing starboard on the Tac rail (Comms forward, then TACCO 1 and TACCO 2) and finally two acoustics aft, with an optional role fit work station in front of the dinette on the port side. What am I missing?

But crucially, how many for the MR1, though? And how did their job functions differ from those described for the MR2?

And how many would there have been for the AEW3, where would they have sat, and what would their functions have been?

Nimrod AEW3:

2 x Pilots
Navigator
Flight Engineer

6 x Mission Consoles, one of which had additional Comms equipment (radio/data link etc).

1 x Mission System Technician (not originally planned for, but keeping the wretched kit going needed him).

Four x Extra seats in the galley for additional crew as required etc

I recall 6 x seats midships as well for additional crew(?). But its a long time ago....

http://8squadron.co.uk/history-image...d_comms_1g.jpg

I think the plan for the MRA4 is:

3 Dry (Inc Lead Dry)
2 Wet
1 IM (Comms...R4:E)
2 Tacos
2 Pilots

Hope that helps

Correct, there is one more mission crewmember than there are consoles at the back.

Thanks chaps, now where are the old, bold salty sea dogs who remember the Mk 1?

MR1
 

Two pilots and flt eng.

Route Nav and Tac Nav.

Port side:

Radio
Radar
and IIRC Deer but then used for the MAR tapes.

Stbd,

Martel (AEO)
Two 1C Sonics
Two Jez
ESM ARAR/ARAX

Radio was a rotated position, trip and trip about between wet and dry teams. Usually a specially selected AEOp would do radio on important trips.

The Jez was a 2-man setup with the 3rd man on galley slave or buoy loading.
When we went Hot the 1C would be manned by the 3rd man and maybe 2nd wet leaving one to monitor the Jez.

So:
2 pilots
flt eng
2 nav
AEO
3 dry
3 wet
Total 12

2 pilots
flt eng
2 nav
AEO
3 dry
3 wet
Total 12

eg 5 + 7.

But you also list:

Radio
Radar
Martel (AEO)
Two 1C Sonics
Two Jez
ESM ARAR/ARAX

8? Or were the two sonics and two Jez manned by three people? (eg the three Wet?)

Pont. nav. is spot on for the Mk 1. However, around '76/'77 we got a number of ex Britannia Loadmasters. They were trained on lookout ( i.e. ship recognition ), camera, ordnance loading and of course, galley. As a result some lucky crews ( mine included ) had 13 in total.

Jacko,

Can't comment on the MRA4, R1 or AEW but for MR1, PN is correct and for MR2 add on 1 dry man.

Also the mimimum crew for pilot training/air displays etc was/is 7 (both MR1 and 2):

Normal flight deck
One nav
3 sensor

I wouldn't bother trying to tie the team down to individual bits of kit - way too many changes over the years!

Clearly I did not make this clear. The Sonics was a short range ASW localisation aid and of no use whatever in open ocean search or tracking scenario apart from the potential to monitor the audio from low channel jez buoys, but if I tell you why I'll have to kill you.

Yes 3 dry, 3 wet. As we only had 2 dry sensors the lot for radio usually fell to dry on wet sorties.

I thought about the loadies but as they were only a short term stop gap I left them out. Fascinating experiment if it could be called that. One of two were not interested. Several were brilliant and it is 'fair' to say that one of two got commisions on the strength of their reports.

What was particularly interesting was that we had an extra, relativly useless man foisted on us whose sole experience, as far as we knew, was ordering flight rations and operating the galley.

They soon started to carve a niche. They did the rations it is true, but soon got into ship recce and camera work. During the intensive ops ordnance loading was quite high pressure with many bouys being dropped and the need to flag up which was loaded where. Also hard work lugging them from the rack under mild g and turbulence. Nne of your mini-bouys is for wimps :)

Although Cambs and barra came in much heavier.

TOFO,

You say:

"for MR2 add on 1 dry man."

Do you mean that the MR2 crew is as for MR1, plus one extra Dry man, or do you mean that the MR2 crew is as described on the RAF website (below), plus one dry?

"two pilots and a flight engineer, two weapon systems officers (WSO) (tactical and routine), and a WSO who is the sensor and communications coordinator. He is, in turn, supported by a team of two ‘wet’ weapon systems operators (WSOps) and four ‘dry’ WSOps."

Wensleydale,

Re AEW3 - interesting - a much smaller crew than on the E-3D, by the sound of it? Just six consoles/mission crew, compared to what, 11 in an E-3D?

RAF website: "11-man mission crew. The mission crew comprises a tactical director (mission crew commander), a fighter allocator, three weapons controllers, a surveillance controller, two surveillance operators, a data-link manager, a communications operator and an electronic-support- measures operator."

What was the breakdown of the six on the AEW Nimwacs? How did the Shack AEW compare? Wasn't the Shack 2 Pilots, 1 Air Engineer, 2 Navigators (one running the radios) and 4 mission crew (Tactical Coordinator (TACO), Controller, and 2 Operators), with the radio navigator later being replaced by an additional mission crew member?

Which five positions on the E-3D are new, in other words?




Arising..... and I hesitate in asking, and am entirely happy if it remains unanswered......

Was the crewing of XV230 (with two SRR personnel - one Army, one Royal) when she was lost, usual or uncommon in theatre? Would it be safe to assume that they were there for MX15 and Broadsword?

More to what PN was saying, I think MR1 sensors were operated according to different sqn / crew procedures, perhaps varying over time also. My crew, on 201 late 70's, didn't have a loadie although the odd one was still about (remember "Loadie" Brown on 42)? Only the dry team did radio, although we dabbled with "one nominated wetman". He wasn't very good though, and didn't like sitting there. Third sonics was done by one of the junior dry team (i.e. me), thus allowing the Lead wet to monitor sonics / jez / tac nav. As soon as I went "hot" on Sonics 3, the buoy would be taken off me, given to one of the wettys on their (decent) sonics receivers, and I would be given another cold one to monitor. Not a pleasant experience in D807 on a windy night, with two pipe-smoking old crustys sat on either side of me.......

I should make it clear Third Sonics was an add on to the original fit. It was a simple audio receiver, placed between the two Mk1c Sonics displays. All I had to do was listen to the active buoy "ping", and if I heard a return, tell the Lead wet behind me. I also had a sonics stopwatch to roughly measure the range.

When we converted to the MR2, the dry team went up to four (I think based in part on the earlier success of the Loadies), making a crew of 13.

Loadie Brown
 

Was on my crew; and he was gradually given "sitting by Nellie" type training on the sensors and eventually went on to convert to AEOp and became a "wettie" himself.
The Ancient Mariner

9 mission consoles. The data link manager and the comms op were not part of the hand-on mission crew but operated the data links and comms. (IIRC)

Yes, however the 'mission crew' was a mix of commissioned navs and AEOs until about 1982 when more positions were opened up to AEOps. I believe this was a planned escape route from ISK to bring EW skills to the Nimwacs. Some, but not all, AEOps stayed the course and made it through to the E3, others bailed out along the route.

Data links and comms, and 3 of the operators, take your pick. On the Shack the mission progression was operator (surveillance) to controller to tacco and it was probbaly intended to be a similar route on the Nimwacks, in other words weapons controller was not a separate discipline as in the E3 but one of progression from surveillance.

The E3 setup more closely parallels the ADGE setup whereas the limited number of positions on the Nimwacs required multi-skilling.

Manning for Nimrod AEW.

6 Consoles (5 "ordinary" consoles plus one with additional comms kit).

Crew could be mix and match depending who was on board and the mission (remember we only flew trials and training for trials - the seating was a little different for data collection).
usual fit was:

1 x Tactical Coordinator (IC mission)
1 x SSO (Senior Surveillance Officer - SC equivalent in Sentry)
1 x SO/Comms
(carried out surveillance function and ran data link/comms hardware)
1 x SO/ESM (surveillance functions and ESM)
1 x Fighter Allocator
1 x Weapons Controller

The consoles ran sideways down the left side of the fuselage. Numbering from the right (front), a typical set up could be:

1: SO/Comm
2: SO ESM
3: SSO
4: TaCo
5: FA
6: WC

Note that Nimrod planned to have more automated systems than the E-3D and therefore the concept was for less crew. The tracker in Nimrod was fully automated (as was data link and ESM) and in theory the system ran itself. The problem was that the radar generated noise also produced a great number of false tracks, and as the system only generated tracks (no sensor data on view) then you did not know which was real and which was false. The SOs managed the tracks to be broadcast on the data link.

The allocation of frequencies to radios was also automatic (AMRICS System) and therefore it was deemed not necessary to have the Comms personnel that were on the E-3D. Comms functionality was carried out by one of the Surveillance Operators in addition to his main tracking duties.

The computers were managed by the SSO - again it was deemed unnecessary to carry a specific Display Technician. The SSO would also be responsible for keeping the sensors running, but we experienced so many problems here that a ground engineer was carried on all flights (something akin to the Radar Technician on the E-3D.) He sat on a camp stool by the equipment racks in the rear!

However, despite the automatic functions in Nimrod, data was input to the computers by a hierarchy system of switch actions that went down to about 6 levels before data could be input (the routes were not logical either). So when voicetelling a track (for example), the Nimrod took 63 button pushes per track - the E-3D takes about 15 for the same functions! There was no digital map with the Nimrod, and therefore, map data was achieved by blutacking a perspex cover with an engraved map at a set scale over the display!! The picture was then slewed to a datum position on the screen. Parallax was a big problem but at least we could chinagraph onto the perspex.

Bottom line - The E-3D, although being a mandraulic and older system, is a much more capable beast and is actually capable of carrying out the tasks allotted to it. These tasks include Airborne Battle Management and Air to Ground direction - something that it was not precured to do showing the expansion capabilities of the E-3D platform. Nimrod was, in effect, a super Shackleton AEW platform. The E-3D with its extra capacity adds so much more than the AEW task that it was procured for.

As a postcript,

The Shackleton AEW carried 5 x Mission Crew to man 3 x consoles:

1 x Tactical Coordinator (IC Mission)
1 x Controller (directed aircraft and optimised the sensors)
1 x Operator (carried out AEW duties - ie voicetel etc)

1 x SO or Controller who acted as Radio Operator.
(Manned the HF radios - took over the roll from 2nd Nav post 1981 cuts)

1 x SO or Controller "resting off console" in the Galley (or the cook)!

Personnel posted to Shackleton Mission Crew started life as an operator. They then upgraded on the Sqn to Controller then TaCo as they gained more experience with the aircraft. The Controller did not have a formal "Ticket" and controlled under the "supervision" of a fighter controller on the ground. This was really useful on QRA in the Iceland/Faroes Gap which we did regardless.

We too had a couple of LMs posted in (about 1984?). They were trained up as Operators I seem to recall but did not stay long with the aircraft. Fighter Control/TG12 personnel arrived in about 1982 and were the first to be awarded the FC Brevet (At the first awards ceremony for the first ever badge, a reporter asked if FC Brevet was an Italian Football Team)!

A photograph of the inside of the Sheckleton appears in the history section of the 8 Squadron website (should anyone be interested in what it looked like). There is also a photograph of Nimrod AEW Console 1.

On our crew the controller ccupied the Charlie seat in isolation with the SO (Operator) in the Alpha running the computer overseen by the Tacco, at first McSporran or Spoon and then Flt Lt BB with FS BB as the Op. The advantage of that was the FS BB became more expert at operating the kit and I didn't have to worry about switching it on, something that I couldn't do to save my life.

Rotating all the rear crew throught he Alpha seat meant you only got to get proper hands-on once evey 4 trips - no good.

Wader:

Concur that crews often did each others' tasks routinely. It was not unknown for the TACO to sit on the spar by the captain's box with the controller in the "B" seat, the senior operator controlling and the junior operator handling the sensors from "A". However, I do not remember learning how to optimise the sensors on the OCU course prior to joining a crew - mind you, that is over 25 years ago and age is a great leveller......and I didn't remember much from the course at the time!

As an afterthought - I came from a crew of mostly smokers, and our non-smoker used to bag the "C" seat whenever possible so that he could curtain himself away from the rest of us! Oh the joys of chain smoking through 8 hours of voicetel, with the paper cup of water slowly filling with tab ends as you lit your next from the stub of the last. "Mandate Moonbeam, this is.... new track...."

29 years.

I remember one lesson vididly - our USAF XO - telling us that he was going to instruct us on the intercom system and would be using chalk and talk and an actual intercom box as an instructional aid.

As he was teaching a bunch of aircrew with well over 10,000 hours and all of whom had used the identical box zzzzzzz after the ritual p1ss-take of course.

'twas he too that said "That'll be another beer in the bothy" as I casually (I confess) hit the transmit button and 360 equally casually recorded it and played it back for the next hour during the CC.

and the point of this thread is..........?

The point is, it's a thread started by somebody seeking information, continued by people providing some of that requested info, and who at the same time are reminiscing about types they've flown in.

And the reason for your question was.................?