XV148
 

A well deserved round of applause for patience and dedication !
XV148's handy work on the restoration of the cockpit may be viewed here

oohhh memories...

.... used to drive in from Cubert, thinking "when are they going to paint that turd the right colour?"

Glad you like it, it wasn't a pretty sight when I acquired her but she is humming now, just the bucket seats, underfloor control rods and connecting her up to a flight sim and a Nimrod will fly !!!

XV236 First MR2 Sortie August 1979
 

XV236 was delivered as the first MR2 to RAF Kinloss on 23rd August. The first MR2 sortie must have taken place a few days afterwards, did anyone fly on this sortie, have the dates or any details of this sortie ?

I wasn't there and don't have the sortie details but have been told that 201 Sqn flew a sortie on the aircraft on the very same day it was delivered.

Can't be right. 206 Sqn were the first squadron to convert to the MR2

if you desperately need to know, all the sqn records (F540s) should have been de-classified under the 30-year rule and should now be in the hands of the Public Records Office (or whatever they are called currently..), I know those for 120 and 42 were handled just so 'cos I did 'em! I think you can apply for them under FOI or somesuch - good luck mind as nobody seemed at all interested in taking them on when we tried to send them away!!!

As far as I recall, XV236 entered Kinloss ASF for post conversion recovery after arrival. This involved getting all the servicing, rectification and important mods done to get it back to the fleet standard after being under civilian (ish) charge during conversion. This might have been more than a few days work. Cheers

OAP

If you happen to be browsing your logbooks in the near future, I am looking for more stories/incidents for the following Nimrods: XV237, XV243, XV248, XV253, XV259, XV262 and XZ282. Any key flight or story about these would be great.
I am also interested toi hear from anyone that flew in XZ283 at RAF Wyton. This was used as a training aircraft and was used in a unique configuration, can anybody help here ?

XV 148

I have a recollection of a an XV 259 trip - a junket for a 'one star'

Air Commodore Tony Caillard (MOD) visited Kinloss in December 78 to see what the Nimrod force 'got up to'. I was pressed ganged into accompanying him because, from our days at Marham, he knew I was a reliable 'bag carrier'. An exercise looking for submarines (CASSEX?) was laid on and XV 259 of 206 Sqn was chosen to carry the great man. It was all very interesting, if a little perplexing, to us V force types. Anyway, at the end of the exercise the pilot kindly delivered us to Benson because the Air Commodore lived at Kenley and I lived at Bushey Heath. I guess that's called one star treatment.

Thanks Ron, exactly the type of individual aircraft story I am looking for, Regards XV148

XV 248
 

On the morning of 6 July 1989, Crew 8 of 42 (TB) Sqn were flying on XV 248 in support of the RN on one of their submarine command course exercises. We intercepted a Mayday on channel 16 from a lobster boat called “Fay” saying she was sinking somewhere between the Isle of Man and Liverpool. We left the RN to their own devices and tried to contact the Fay to no avail. The coastguard did not get an exact position so we started a search. After about four hours or so, and much fun going around Douglas beaches at 200 ft, our radar op reported a weak contact. As we investigated we spotted survivors in the water 2 nm off Douglas clutching empty plastic bottles. We dropped an ASR kit and waited for the Sea King, who had also joined the search, to arrive on scene. We spotted two survivors swimming to the dinghy and carried on circling them until the Sea King had winched all the survivors up safely. We headed to Valley for a refuel before carrying on back to St Mawgan. Apparently, the people on the boat had rowed from Douglas to Liverpool in a bath tub and were being taken back to the IOM on the Fay when it sunk! It was the bottles used as floatation for the bath tub that saved their lives, and the fact that the sea temperature was warmer than usual for July. In all, we rescued nine people. :D

I have pics that we took from 248 if you send me your email to my PM (Can't figure out how to paste them onto this).

XV 259
 

On 29 Jan 1975 left St Mawgan en route to Singapore where we arrived 4 days later with XV259. My first visit to the Far East and indeed anywhere east of Malta. That aircraft may have been the last one in Singapore on a MARDET. In August 1977 took the aircraft to Nimes Garons where we stayed for 3 nights. Was supposed to do a sortie whilst there but we had a high speed abort (1 knot short of V1). The figures worked as we stopped 20 metres short of the end of the runway. The French officer on the flight deck was a little pale when he got off the aircraft. Cooincidently we found out Elvis had died whilst there. Newspaper headline "Le Roi est mort".

Also was part of the crew that delivered the aircraft to Woodford on 9 Jan 1978.

XZ283 at Wyton
 

XZ283 was delivered to RAF Wyton in 1976 and served until 1978. This was a unique Nimrod, does anybody remember it while with 51 Sqn during this time and did you fly or work on XZ283 ?

Last Nimrod Landing
 

Someone asked me to post the link to the 'movie' I made of the last ever landing in July 2011 (with ATC comms), enjoy: XV148

Still miss it, I pass by XV244 everyday on my daily ride or occasional run. On my way back from Findhorn as I look across the airfield sometimes i blink and I can almost see the pans full and people busy at a job they loved. Hey ho times change.

¿AN/SSQ-41?
 

Hi I am called Javier and investigate conflicts of the last decades

Please someone I can be clarified by the model of a buoy thrown from a Nimrod (XV227).

They were two models, AN/SSQ-36 and other one mentions the document this:

XPX/ (NO.) 5 (type) 30051 or 300S1 confused (U/S) N/L or N/C confused.

These are other information of the buoy

BUOY (..TIME) (..LAT) (..LONG) (398/904/850 TYPE) (..LENGTH) (1 H LIFE) (...CHAN NO.)

AMBTN OUT (55/73/115/65/305/58/850/55/1150/53)

Thank you

Javier,

What these figures refer to is bathythermal buoys. The SSQ36 dropped to a depth of 1000ft at a known descent rate. The surface unit of the buoy then transmitted the temperature back to the aircraft as the temperature unit descended. These buoys were later replaced with buoys that went down to 1500ft.

AMBTN OUT (55/73/115/65/305/58/850/55/1150/53) refers to:

At 55Hz - Ambient noise is 73dB
115Hz - Ambient noise is 65dB and so on....
These readings would be taken from most other types of passive sonobuoy but the SSQ36 was not able to provide ambient noise readings.

Hope this helps,
Ping

Javier,
You will find a good explanation in Tony Blackmans book Rise and Fall. All public domain stuff no risk of Sy Breach

Good point DA, although the SSQ36 was defunct many years ago and the rest of the information I left above is now open source.