New Nimrods arriving

The first of nine new maritime patrol aircraft for the RAF is due to arrive at a Scottish airbase after being flown from the United States.

The £3bn fleet of P-8A Poseidons are to be stationed at RAF Lossiemouth on the Moray coast.

The first of the completed planes will operate from nearby Kinloss Barracks, a former RAF station, while new facilities are built at Lossiemouth.

It is almost 10 years since the RAF's last patrol aircraft were scrapped.

hello

No doubt each of these will also have three independent computer control systems to allow for electronic "crashes"?

"It is almost 10 years since the RAF's last patrol aircraft were scrapped."

 Yes, bring back "Forty thousand rivets flying in close formation" Last reliable one we had.

Regards Ian

Strange how we are able to save billions with aviation write offs over the years but - - - - - -

Edited By Circlip on 04/02/2020 13:09:20

My wife's cousin has industrial deafness which he blames on being aircrew on Shackletons for many years.

Martin C

Boeing 737's under a different name, I hope they are not the latest Max versions

Martin P

Should put the Russians in their place!

Last reliable one we had my arse. I worked on the Nimrod for many years, both at NMSU and on the line.

They were fantastic aircraft and in a league of their own worldwide in the ASW/SAR field.

I was there today when the P8 landed. It was flanked by two Typhoons that broke as they flew over us, just before Findhorn Bay, then roared away in a sharp banked turn towards Lossie, leaving the P8 to land at Kinloss.

I'd love it if it had been a British built aircraft; it was criminal to scrap the MRA4 in my book. That said, it was still a magnificent sight to see a big aircraft in RAF markings landing and taxiing at Kinloss.

Yes and if nicola sturgeon manages to winge her way out of the UK we can have another massive bill to move them down to England.

Not going to happen.

"Flogging round the oggin" is a different ball-game from ETOPs point-to-point. The extra reassurance of 4 versus 2 engines was (I would have thought) a useful design function. I assume that the Max debacle means that the P8s don't have LEAP engines so, is it shut one down for patrol loitering or two, both running on low power? As Bill Boeing supposedly replied, when asked why he always flew on 4 engined aircraft, "' Cos we haven't yet made a 6 engine version"!

rgds

Bill

I guess they must have been MUCH cheaper than an European Airbus. Why do we keep buying American junk ?

The P8 is a proven design, anything Airbus based would have been a development project and the experience of the MR4A made that un-palatable. Any development project will cost more than an existing product. The P8 is based on the 737-800 with modified 737-900 wings, the -800 & 900 are Neo's not the MAX. The 737 is of course a devlopment of the original 707 so the design of some bits are a similar age as the Comet the MR4A was based on. Some parts of the the P8 are British. Foe example Marshall Aerospace and Defence Group make the auxillary fuel tanks that give he P8 it's extended range

https://marshalladg.com/our-stories/boeing-p8-tanks

Robert G8RPI.

These are my personal opinions and may not reflect the views of my employer.

As Lord Hives, chairman of Rolls-Royce before, during and after the War, said when asked how many engines an airliner should have - "one more than it's got now".

JA

One of my lecturers at college studied hearing loss related to flying Shackletons many years ago. They found significant hearing impairment at certain frequencies at the end of long flights. After a couple of days rest the hearing at those frequencies came back. However, it was surely indicative of the likelihood of long term hearing damage due to repeated exposure.

regards

Graham

Too true, but also the airframe is almost the least challenging part of this sort of technology. All it has to do is lift a certain weight to a certain height and then loiter. It's the contents of the aircraft - radars, infra-red, magnetic, spectrum monitoring, sono-buoys, anti-submarine weapons and the associated command and control system that push the boundaries, because these have to keep up with the other guy. During the Cold War it was relatively easy to stay in front because the Soviet Union were slower than the West, then there was a holiday. Now we live in a different world, full of new threats and potential adversaries.

And of course, the airborne system has to be integrated with equally complex Shore and Maritime Command & Control Systems. It detects or infers ground and air targets within an area the size of a country, and deploys any of the available assets in range to deal with it.

As the other side know these systems are 'force multipliers' they put considerable effort into removing them; therefore airborne systems need advanced defensive capability as well.

The story of the MR4A is fascinating, one of solutions offered by Industry failing to keep up with what the rest of the world was doing (old threats disappearing while new ones appeared), whilst the MoD (actually the Treasury and No10) took ages to cough up money. An early example was discovering the new wings needed to extend range didn't fit the old Nimrod bodies because the RAF and Industry had both made ad-hoc modifications to individual aircraft in order to keep them flying. And had bought different versions of the aircraft over a few decades, and modified them. Too many of these penny pinching mods were a surprise and resulted in multiple 'who pays for this' rows.

Unfortunately, the MoD spent nearly £4Bn on a project finally cancelled when it was 9 years late with the aircraft and onboard systems riddled with unresolved technical issues. Buying the American system has many benefits; first it's compatible because US and UK military operational methods are similar, second the Americans bore most of the P8's development burden, it's available now at predictable cost, and it mostly works, third, there isn't an obvious European alternative.

It's a far cry from Biggles jumping into a Sopwith Camel, gaining as much height as possible, and - with the wind in his hair - dropping out of the Sun to do fair battle with beastly Fokkers.

Dave

Should be ideal aircraft to blow up the French and Spanish fishing fleets that invade our waters

I was working for an aircraft components company in the 80s when a requirement came through for bomb-dropping sequencers for Shackletons. I think there'd been a delay to the Nimrod programme and the Shackletons had to serve a couple more years.

The GA for this sequencer (can't remember the offical nomenclature) was one of the only 2 *real* blueprints I've ever seen in the flesh, it was approved in May '41 whilst the Bismarck was loose in the north atlantic, and I think it was originally for Wellington bombers.

I came across one of my pals in the DO going through the details - he had one of the contact studs up in front of him and was trying to decide which of the possible candidate materials to specify. He seemed to be trying to find the most strictly-specified and least-available material on the market, which explained why Purchasing had been struggling to get stuff in for the piece parts, and we were - as usual - late.

On the drawing in front of him it said "BRASS".

In the end, we made little or nothing. One of the guys was on holiday in Oz, and found several of the sequencers, IIRC at least some in unissued condition, in an aircraft boneyard over there. So we refurbished those instead.

Edited By Mick B1 on 05/02/2020 10:34:42

I used to work for BAE Systems. When the Nimrod MRA4 was cancelled I heard that there was a huge sigh of relief around the company.

cheers

Bill

Don't bet the farm on it! Not difficult to think of another Country choosing to leave an economic Union they joined voluntarily. It's certainly possible, maybe even likely. Ask a Scot!

" FoR example Marshall Aerospace and Defence Group make the auxiliary fuel tanks that give he P8 it's extended range"

Wonder what final issue the drawings were at time of supply?

Regards Ian.

Funnily enough I was on a Nimrod today, MR2P XV255 at the Norwich City Museum. I was picking up a small gas turbine engine (Honeywell GTCP36-150) that I bought. That's a new project to get going on.

Robert G8RPI.