Did you notice how the powers that be erected fencing to stop us seeing the destruction being filmed, they must be ashamed about something, they forgot obout the helicopter news flights though, tits.
The thing was long overdue and over budget and based on an obsolete airframe the only scandal is that it wasn’t axed long ago. If the military can’t decide on what they want and the contractors can’t deliver this is what you get (or not).
I agree with you Zen, so very sad.
Can we Airfix it?
Nope
Jazz, you are leaving the MOD out of your condemnation. I would bet a large part of my anatomy that the military knew very well what they wanted…
This has been a hatchet job by the Bean Counters. For months, the highest ranks have been counselling Cameron and Co, warning them that the absence of Nimrods will be a disaster waiting to happen. A bunch of very senior retired Chiefs of the Defence Staff, and cohorts, finally in exasperation wrote an open letter, which was publicised in the DT the other day, repeating the advice they had provided previously in private, which our politicians have chosen to ignore…one of these days it will come back to bite us savagely in the bum, and I hope in the process not too many lives are lost.
The thing was long overdue and over budget and based on an obsolete airframe the only scandal is that it wasn’t axed long ago. If the military can’t decide on what they want and the contractors can’t deliver this is what you get (or not).
What have we in its place? SFA – that’s what.
Not forgetting the demise of the Harriers, the Ark Royal and the mothballing of the Challenger MBT.
What a load of rubbish!
Do you not realise that this aircraft is a tarted up version of the Comet – the first commercial jet, which began life in 1949, 62 years ago?
The entire project has been a tribute to British bullheadedness, and to military and industrial incompetence bordering on criminal deception. You can read more about it in Wiki, although that gives a rather sanitised picture.
I saw one of your senior military idiots on TV saying that the Nimrod would have been perfect for Australia; what a cretin! We may suffer from similar problems to the UK in our military and its procurement agency, and our industry may be based on the same global companies, but we are not completely stupid.
Whether we’re talking long duration littoral surveillance or AWACS, there are other far more suitable airframes, and plenty of off-the-shelf electronics packages (or as near off-the-shelf as you ever get in this field). The project should never have been started, let alone being allowed to drag on for so many years and at such a ridiculous cost overrun.
Patriotism is fine when you can afford it, but the Brit region of the EUSSR can’t. Think of what the money could have done for education or the NHS.
You are no longer a global military power, and you shouldn’t be trying to remain one. Cut your suit according to your cloth and stop dreaming about expensive toys – especially those that are designed for no other purpose than to kill people. Or if you must have them to bolster your ageing machismo, buy them from countries that have the technology and forget this stupid mantra of “British technology is best”; most of the time in the military field, it isn’t.
Sorry people, to shatter your illusions, but I was in this field all my working life, so I do know what I’m talking about.
What’s original design age got to do with it? These are brand new airframes with state-of-the-art avionics and weapons systems. By contrast I would refer m’learned friend to the Septics’ venerable B-52 which will be in service well into this century and also ask if the Aussies are still flying ancient, propeller-driven Orions in the ASW role?
OZ
No they’re not, OZ, they’re scrap.
I’m sorry if I didn’t go into sufficient detail for you OZ, I hadn’t expected to be able to have a analytical debate with anyone here. If you’d like to go into it in depth, I’d be glad to engage with you. Were you in this field, by the way, or are you just quoting? The reason I ask is that it greatly affects the way in which I respond – if you were in the game, I can assume a lot of background, which makes debate far easier.
I don’t believe that your comments on the B-52 (about which I know very little) or our P-3Cs are relevant – they have, as you say, been in service for a long time, as have earlier Nimrods in the UK. I seem to remember that procurement of a replacement had just started when I retired, but I could be wrong.
We’ve been here before with the AEW3 another comet variant.
I’ve copied the whole piece but incorporated the link..I think.
More correctly the Nimrod AEW3, this aircraft was a disaster from start to finish and a perfect example of what can go wrong with Defence Procurement.
Over a billion pounds were wasted on this two-headed monster – leading to a much reduced budget to buy AWACS – which is what some in the MOD wanted in the first place. However, a Labour Govt was in power, the country was strapped for cash and UK jobs were a major issue. Industry told the MOD what it wanted to hear in 1977, namely, that Nimrod would meet the spec and secondly, it would be in squadron service by 1982. One day, an insider will write the true story of how this outrage came to pass, but here are a few salient details.
One memorable quote from the very early 80s was, “It’s all proven technology, all we have to do is to integrate it..”
The airframe featured two radar heads: one at each end of the fuselage, making the test aircraft one of the wierdest-looking things ever to fly. Transmitter cooling was never the problem that crew room banter would have people believe.
Its all up weight that was so out of control that at one point it wasn’t going to be possible to fit a jump seat for an IRE to occupy. Meanwhile, the (even by then obsolete) Shackleton trundled on – and on, and on, and on.
It is worth noting that the prime contractor for this abortion was the MoD. The contractors involved were paid cost plus for all the work they did. As they delivered what they were asked to that’s not surprising. The fact that the radar (as ordered) was not compatible with the airframe (as ordered) didn’t seem to matter to the Civil Servants involved. Hard working no doubt, just incompetent and not fit to run a procurement programme for a cheese roll.
All in all, a total spinning bow tie extravaganza of proportions bordering on biblical. Unsurprisingly, it was all down to decisions undertaken during the tenure of… wait for it… a Labour government. Good eh?
It’s all here: Nimrod AEW3
Lessons learned = 0
As proven by the Nimrod MRA4 program some decades later.
Thanks Jazz – absolutely spot on! 😆
Incidentally OZ, before we get into detailed examination of this fiasco, I must correct you about the airframes. They were never even planned to be new – they were refurbished old frames from the existing RAF fleet, and that was one of the initial problems.
Not personaaly involved, Bearsy, apart from a lifelong interest in aviation and No.2 cub beginning his RAF career on Nimrods. He’s presently in a hot and sandy place as a maintenance instructor on the Typhoon.
The B-52 and P-3 references are, IMHO, relevant in that the crash of an ‘old’ Nimrod in Afghanestan is being used to shoot down the whole project, just like the crash on just one Concorde scuppered that design miracle after years of flawless performance and politics saw the demise of TSR-2 back in the ’60s. In relation to the latter, our then socialist government ordered the destruction not only of the airframes, but also the jigs and the machining tools in order to ensure it could never be resurrected. History seems to be repeating itself.
OZ
Bolleaux – ‘personally’
OZ
Hmm, let’s take this slowly, OZ.
TSR2 – nothing to do with a crash. We shall probably never know why that was cancelled, though some of us have a suspicion that it was the result of pressure from elsewhere; I don’t think I’ll pursue that any further.
Concord(e) – commercial field, not military. Different subject (not a function of MOD(PE)) – happy to engage, but less well informed.
MR4A – From this distance I was not aware that the crash in Afghanistan (which I vaguely recall) was being used as an excuse for cancellation, but if it was, it’s a furphy, or more likely a convenient smoke-screen to save face. The project should never have been started and should have been cancelled yonks ago.
I fear you have been reading too much propaganda – or ‘marketing speak’ or ‘political utterances’. Read Jazz’s extract and then the longer article which is linked from the ARRSE site. A real eye-opener if you’ve not been exposed before. I was in it – whoops, I mean I knew many of the people, especially in GEC and MoD, who were involved.
Bearsy – You and Jazz may well be right (I’m sure the collective ARRSE would be), but can we take this up tomorrow please 🙂 Permission to stand down for now, sir, as the NSW has just arrived from a late shift?
This could be fun, then again, it could go ballistic! I still have a copy of my last shoeing. 🙂
What is a ‘shoeing’, Toc? This is a normal ordinary question. I do not understand the term so I am asking for further information. There is no hidden agenda or emotive overlay. It is just an ordinary, normal question.
A rugby term Bearsy. Being on the wrong side of the ruck, stamping, shoeing, clearing out.
Thanks, Toc! 😀 Never played it, or followed it, which explains my ignorance!
A ‘shellacking’, in my terms.
From your link, Jazz;
Amazingly, the collective memory of the Nimrod AEW farce seems to have been completely ignored when it was decided to replace the Nimrod MR2 with the Nimrod MRA4. Astonishingly many of the same mistakes of attempting to once again adapt an airframe designed in the 1940’s, have been repeated for the second time…
Amazingly? Astonishingly? Predictably.
Thank you all. As a humble, but proud ex-colonial who has watched the suicidal antics of successive British administrations over the past half century I tend to explode at yet more erosion of our independence. I quite often let my feelings run riot!
The fact that it is an old design, whether updated or not, is really irrelevant. The main problems are that it was hugely late and vastly over budget, things not unknown in any government project, especially defence ones. I suppose we will end up using some old American cast offs in the end.
The people who really ought to suffer for this are those responsible for the huge overruns in time and money.
Interesting and informative blog, thank you all.
FEEG – no, it isn’t irrelevant at all. The linked articles explain why, if you have the intestinal fortitude to plough through them. But the world of Defence Procurement is very specialised (some would say it doesn’t even obey the laws of physics), so I am not surprised that you don’t understand. 😆
Boadicea's Chariot 
Did you notice how the powers that be erected fencing to stop us seeing the destruction being filmed, they must be ashamed about something, they forgot obout the helicopter news flights though, tits.
The thing was long overdue and over budget and based on an obsolete airframe the only scandal is that it wasn’t axed long ago. If the military can’t decide on what they want and the contractors can’t deliver this is what you get (or not).
I agree with you Zen, so very sad.
Can we Airfix it?
Nope
Jazz, you are leaving the MOD out of your condemnation. I would bet a large part of my anatomy that the military knew very well what they wanted…
This has been a hatchet job by the Bean Counters. For months, the highest ranks have been counselling Cameron and Co, warning them that the absence of Nimrods will be a disaster waiting to happen. A bunch of very senior retired Chiefs of the Defence Staff, and cohorts, finally in exasperation wrote an open letter, which was publicised in the DT the other day, repeating the advice they had provided previously in private, which our politicians have chosen to ignore…one of these days it will come back to bite us savagely in the bum, and I hope in the process not too many lives are lost.
What have we in its place? SFA – that’s what.
Not forgetting the demise of the Harriers, the Ark Royal and the mothballing of the Challenger MBT.
What a load of rubbish!
Do you not realise that this aircraft is a tarted up version of the Comet – the first commercial jet, which began life in 1949, 62 years ago?
The entire project has been a tribute to British bullheadedness, and to military and industrial incompetence bordering on criminal deception. You can read more about it in Wiki, although that gives a rather sanitised picture.
I saw one of your senior military idiots on TV saying that the Nimrod would have been perfect for Australia; what a cretin! We may suffer from similar problems to the UK in our military and its procurement agency, and our industry may be based on the same global companies, but we are not completely stupid.
Whether we’re talking long duration littoral surveillance or AWACS, there are other far more suitable airframes, and plenty of off-the-shelf electronics packages (or as near off-the-shelf as you ever get in this field). The project should never have been started, let alone being allowed to drag on for so many years and at such a ridiculous cost overrun.
Patriotism is fine when you can afford it, but the Brit region of the EUSSR can’t. Think of what the money could have done for education or the NHS.
You are no longer a global military power, and you shouldn’t be trying to remain one. Cut your suit according to your cloth and stop dreaming about expensive toys – especially those that are designed for no other purpose than to kill people. Or if you must have them to bolster your ageing machismo, buy them from countries that have the technology and forget this stupid mantra of “British technology is best”; most of the time in the military field, it isn’t.
Sorry people, to shatter your illusions, but I was in this field all my working life, so I do know what I’m talking about.
What’s original design age got to do with it? These are brand new airframes with state-of-the-art avionics and weapons systems. By contrast I would refer m’learned friend to the Septics’ venerable B-52 which will be in service well into this century and also ask if the Aussies are still flying ancient, propeller-driven Orions in the ASW role?
OZ
No they’re not, OZ, they’re scrap.
I’m sorry if I didn’t go into sufficient detail for you OZ, I hadn’t expected to be able to have a analytical debate with anyone here. If you’d like to go into it in depth, I’d be glad to engage with you. Were you in this field, by the way, or are you just quoting? The reason I ask is that it greatly affects the way in which I respond – if you were in the game, I can assume a lot of background, which makes debate far easier.
I don’t believe that your comments on the B-52 (about which I know very little) or our P-3Cs are relevant – they have, as you say, been in service for a long time, as have earlier Nimrods in the UK. I seem to remember that procurement of a replacement had just started when I retired, but I could be wrong.
We’ve been here before with the AEW3 another comet variant.
I’ve copied the whole piece but incorporated the link..I think.
Nimrod AWACS
More correctly the Nimrod AEW3, this aircraft was a disaster from start to finish and a perfect example of what can go wrong with Defence Procurement.
Over a billion pounds were wasted on this two-headed monster – leading to a much reduced budget to buy AWACS – which is what some in the MOD wanted in the first place. However, a Labour Govt was in power, the country was strapped for cash and UK jobs were a major issue. Industry told the MOD what it wanted to hear in 1977, namely, that Nimrod would meet the spec and secondly, it would be in squadron service by 1982. One day, an insider will write the true story of how this outrage came to pass, but here are a few salient details.
One memorable quote from the very early 80s was, “It’s all proven technology, all we have to do is to integrate it..”
The airframe featured two radar heads: one at each end of the fuselage, making the test aircraft one of the wierdest-looking things ever to fly. Transmitter cooling was never the problem that crew room banter would have people believe.
Its all up weight that was so out of control that at one point it wasn’t going to be possible to fit a jump seat for an IRE to occupy. Meanwhile, the (even by then obsolete) Shackleton trundled on – and on, and on, and on.
It is worth noting that the prime contractor for this abortion was the MoD. The contractors involved were paid cost plus for all the work they did. As they delivered what they were asked to that’s not surprising. The fact that the radar (as ordered) was not compatible with the airframe (as ordered) didn’t seem to matter to the Civil Servants involved. Hard working no doubt, just incompetent and not fit to run a procurement programme for a cheese roll.
All in all, a total spinning bow tie extravaganza of proportions bordering on biblical. Unsurprisingly, it was all down to decisions undertaken during the tenure of… wait for it… a Labour government. Good eh?
It’s all here: Nimrod AEW3
Lessons learned = 0
As proven by the Nimrod MRA4 program some decades later.
Thanks Jazz – absolutely spot on! 😆
Incidentally OZ, before we get into detailed examination of this fiasco, I must correct you about the airframes. They were never even planned to be new – they were refurbished old frames from the existing RAF fleet, and that was one of the initial problems.
Not personaaly involved, Bearsy, apart from a lifelong interest in aviation and No.2 cub beginning his RAF career on Nimrods. He’s presently in a hot and sandy place as a maintenance instructor on the Typhoon.
The B-52 and P-3 references are, IMHO, relevant in that the crash of an ‘old’ Nimrod in Afghanestan is being used to shoot down the whole project, just like the crash on just one Concorde scuppered that design miracle after years of flawless performance and politics saw the demise of TSR-2 back in the ’60s. In relation to the latter, our then socialist government ordered the destruction not only of the airframes, but also the jigs and the machining tools in order to ensure it could never be resurrected. History seems to be repeating itself.
OZ
Bolleaux – ‘personally’
OZ
Hmm, let’s take this slowly, OZ.
TSR2 – nothing to do with a crash. We shall probably never know why that was cancelled, though some of us have a suspicion that it was the result of pressure from elsewhere; I don’t think I’ll pursue that any further.
Concord(e) – commercial field, not military. Different subject (not a function of MOD(PE)) – happy to engage, but less well informed.
MR4A – From this distance I was not aware that the crash in Afghanistan (which I vaguely recall) was being used as an excuse for cancellation, but if it was, it’s a furphy, or more likely a convenient smoke-screen to save face. The project should never have been started and should have been cancelled yonks ago.
I fear you have been reading too much propaganda – or ‘marketing speak’ or ‘political utterances’. Read Jazz’s extract and then the longer article which is linked from the ARRSE site. A real eye-opener if you’ve not been exposed before. I was in it – whoops, I mean I knew many of the people, especially in GEC and MoD, who were involved.
Bearsy – You and Jazz may well be right (I’m sure the collective ARRSE would be), but can we take this up tomorrow please 🙂 Permission to stand down for now, sir, as the NSW has just arrived from a late shift?
OZ
Catch you later, mate – have a good one. 😎
Here’s the full AEW3 horror story.
This could be fun, then again, it could go ballistic! I still have a copy of my last shoeing. 🙂
What is a ‘shoeing’, Toc?
This is a normal ordinary question. I do not understand the term so I am asking for further information. There is no hidden agenda or emotive overlay. It is just an ordinary, normal question.
A rugby term Bearsy. Being on the wrong side of the ruck, stamping, shoeing, clearing out.
Thanks, Toc! 😀
Never played it, or followed it, which explains my ignorance!
A ‘shellacking’, in my terms.
From your link, Jazz;
Amazingly? Astonishingly? Predictably.
Thank you all. As a humble, but proud ex-colonial who has watched the suicidal antics of successive British administrations over the past half century I tend to explode at yet more erosion of our independence. I quite often let my feelings run riot!
The fact that it is an old design, whether updated or not, is really irrelevant. The main problems are that it was hugely late and vastly over budget, things not unknown in any government project, especially defence ones. I suppose we will end up using some old American cast offs in the end.
The people who really ought to suffer for this are those responsible for the huge overruns in time and money.
Interesting and informative blog, thank you all.
FEEG – no, it isn’t irrelevant at all. The linked articles explain why, if you have the intestinal fortitude to plough through them. But the world of Defence Procurement is very specialised (some would say it doesn’t even obey the laws of physics), so I am not surprised that you don’t understand. 😆