BBC - Panorama - A Bad Deal for Britain - Nimrod AEW3 (1985) BBC Panorama Episode on the Nimrod AEW3 Program. for more information see the wiki page: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British...
Amazing documentary. No punches pulled in that! To think as well that at the time, there was still the expectation that the aircraft would enter service... which of course it didn't!
When I checked GlobalSecurity I found the following: "According to the British Govemment, the decision was made solely on the system's proven ability to meet the country's defense requirement. This decision resulted in public outrage, especially by GEC, that the negative implications were "tremendous" for the British electronics industry, including loss of over 2,500 prime and subcontractor jobs and a substantial future export market for early waming devices. But the British Minister of Defence, George Younger, in announcing the AWACS decision to the House of Commons, held that the gains for other British firms will equal or even exceed losses to GEC". In other words, $1.37 Billion worth of development ended up being for nothing.
I worked on that project for a number years in a junior role. The RAF wanted the AWACS from the outset, Nimrod was cramped, old, noisy and uncomfortable, whereas AWACS was the opposite. You can NEVER sell a product to a customer that they don't want, and even if it had performed perfectly (and I don't pretend for a minute that it did) they still wouldn't have liked it, the Nimrod airframe was completly unsuitable and should never have been re-purposed for this role.
They had to do something with the investment they'd made in Comet 4. It generated employment, recognised sunk costs and meant that pounds would not be exported to America in quite the same quantum. It was seen as vital that the UK maintained a presence in the electronic warfare systems market. Given that the cold war was a complete waste of time and money anyway, the decision is defensible.
@@yuglesstube All fair and valid points, I do wonder how much time and effort was wasted trying to cram a quart into a pint pot Vs the inherrent technical challanges with the overall solution, and whether a bigger airframe would have led to a deliverable solution. I guess we'll never know now.
@Tom-zy6ke I believe that Comet was the biggest disaster for British aviation, apart from giving the Americans the jet (And the soviets). Worse even than Brabazon, TSR2, VC10 and Trident. It came just as the jet era began, and it gave Boeing vital intelligence on what not to do, and it gave them time to do it. How different the world would be today if Comet had worked, Whittle had kept his patents and had Britain not been rendered almost impoverished and greatly damaged by the war, and indeed the Great War. Somebody in the know, apparently, through youtube, has told me that the UK share of Airbus work is being slowly wound down as we speak. Whoever he is, he really seems to know what he's on about. Sunderland, Ellesmere, Dagenham, Hatfield, Sheffield, Coventry and Filton. What a shambolic disaster. Anyway, good chat. 👍
Im sure we wouldn't dare repeat these types of issues again ...... Oh wait, the list grows ever longer. The British Army Ajax is a case in point, could have CV90 in service already but oh no, plod on with Ajax. Goodness knows what will happen with Puma/Bell 212/412/Dauphin replacement! Sensible choice would be Black Hawk but Weatlands anyone 🤔?
It appears that the aircraft manufacturers in Britain lobbied for the program just to keep their factories humming, without giving thought to the constraints that their aircrafts posed to the electronics and radars. And Marconi added salt to the injury.
