I worked at Hawker Siddeley ( De havillands ) aviation in the early 1960s and was on the design team that designed the Nimrod . The airframe was based on the DH Comet .
The C130 and B52 still flying today and they were designed in the 50's. Politicians and unelected Civil servants have killed our aviation industry. A beautiful aircraft, gone☹
Your industry could always come back. You Brits have made some really great aircraft. I especially liked your V-bombers. But it seems to me that most of your people would rather have new development dollars in other areas of your budget. Much like the Canadians. Perhaps the P-8 provided more capabilities, future growth, and lower maintenance cost?
@@tibchy144 Well certainly the British empire isn't what it once was. But I'm thinking you meant to say maybe you need to be big to "muscle out" the competition. I know my country certainly did it in the case of the F-111 and probably many other cases. I guess in the long run if you can get what you require now, configured for your particular needs and protection without getting burned too bad on the price tag then it's good. I just like to see our allies happy. And to Dark Mice below, I'm sure the U.S. has probably out-shined the UK in the incompetence department when it comes to taxpayer dollars, not just on military projects.
I think that's more of a good reflection on the versatility of those frames and the simplicity of their primary roles. For what the mod wanted to do with it (a complex mishmash of airborne reconnaissance, electronic warfare and anti sub warfare), the Nimrod was a woefully inadequate platform with a needlessly complicated upgrade princess required. The idea of the mra4 should have never gotten off the drawing board.
I work on the camp where the ill fated Nimmy's were to be stationed. What a total sh**show it was. Hearing the numbers of these new MRA4's going down, and eventually hearing Bob Ainsworth ceasing Nimrod MR2 ops for good, (brought on mainly by what happened to XV230 over Afghanistan) until the new type entered service, which really sounded the death knell for Kinloss as an RAF base. Further bad news, was hearing that if the small number of the new Nimrods came, they were considering moving them to RAF Waddington. The Station Commander at the time, did say not to get any hopes up. Thankfully, the Army moved up here, but the empty MRA4 simulator building on the camp, stands yet again, as silent testament, as to what happens to taxpayer's money on such a costly and failed project.
And little did the Woodford workforce know that all the design, research and development and not too mention the costs involved that all their efforts and hard work would end up being scrapped. Added to this it was the final nail the coffin for BAe Woodford. A site that manufactured some of the most iconic British built aircraft now yet another housing estate.
Yet there are still Nimrod flying from St.Mawgan. Not well publicised but there are still a few in service for special projects. My dad was a crew chief on nimrod for many many years.
And We Americans wonder why the rest of the world has a sour taste I'm their mouth with US. Boeing sold them the Poseidon instead of the Nimrod and I think we should have spent more money and effort to keep Britain's military industrial complex strong, and Russia showed us why. I wish they would have gone forward with this upgrade over the P-8 just to keep those tradesman employed.
I served as an aircraft technician during the 'cold war' sadly not on the Nimrod but remember refuelling them many times when they visited us. You take off Nimrod's clothes and underneath is A COMET! That aircraft started its life so badly with several high level decompressions, crashes and loss of lives. But in her new form as Nimrod she served the RAF SUPERBLY for decades. We were all sad to see them go. The airframes redeemed themselves totally giving the UK the airborne maritime protection it needed.
Oh they understood it all right. I'm on record as saying at the time that they'd wait five years unitl everyone had forgotten, then order the P-8 as a 'new' solution to our requirement. It was five years and thirty days...
Ibirdball if it makes you feel any better, we are a nation known for guns and gun makers known world wide but we issue our military Dutch and German small arms. No love for colt or Smith& Wesson.
Was lucky enough to sit in the cockpit of PA01 on re build at Woodford, crying shame to see now what happened to the program, fantastic aircraft highlight of my career in Aerospace 😟
Fue la última esperanza del Comet para que siguiera volando. Esta versión era muy espectacular y tan poderoso en velocidad que sus antecesores, pero con una mejora en eficiencia y distancia, llegó a ser transpacífico a diferencia de los primeros Nimrods que eran transatlánticos. A pensar de su cancelación terminó por ser una maravilla aeronáutica. Saludos. 😌👍🏻
Remember seeing 1 sat in a hangar at kinloss while I was there as part of a harrier detachment in 09. Seemed strange there wasn’t much activity to get them to stand up at that time. Next time I saw it was in a scrap yard on tv. Of course our harriers were doomed too in the same SDSR. Cheers tories ✌🏻
@Sam Lutfi it would have been the best tool in the world for the job it was designed to do ....and the Americans didn't want that to be the case....looks ain't all, go take a look in the mirror
From what I’ve heard. The MRA4 wasn’t cancelled because of financial reasons but because of airworthiness. The MRA4 still had issues and nobody was willing to the take the risk and sign the aircraft into service. Bearing in mind his was not long after Nimrod MR2’s had a problem with fuel leaks, a tragic crash and the Haddon-Cave report. One of the issues was, when they came to installing the new MRA4 wings onto the old MR2 airframe. They found out that the aircraft were first built on wooden jigs and the tolerances were that bad, no two airframes were the same.
Thats the popularly held story about the wings...but it appears to not be true. The real story is a lot more complex. One of the people who built it posted a lot of detail over on Key Aero about the real reasons. They're a lot more mundane, and the wings fitted just fine apparently.
I remember Nimrod when it was at RAF waddington and the RAF decided to change the wings so new wings were made but gess what they didn’t fit what l heard was the new wings would not bolt on it was fixed but after that it was not long before they came out of Service what a shame a very beautiful aircraft 😢
The Nimrod was a great aircraft and considered the best in its kind. The UK made a terrible mistake in scrapping the Nimrod fleet. Now they have the much more expensive Poseidon which does not have the same capabilities the Nimrod had. Please someone explain why Britain has become dependent on buying US made military equipment rather than giving British made products a chance. It seems the US military lobbyists groups have a hold of the British military and government. What happened to British interests, to Britain first? What a pity, the Nimrod was just awesome.
@Red Draken Don't blame us. You're the ones who decided to cut funding to your military and try to do defense "on the cheap" with off-the-shelf products.
If I was a betting man, I'd say the simple answer to your question is one which has been going on for decades - that is back- handers to politicians from foreign competitors. There is simply no pride in Britain now. It's simply all about corporate greed.
Given that it was almost ready for service when they decided to scrap it, I still find this a strange decision. Yes, there were cost and time overruns but there are in most modern aircraft design and test programmes given the complex nature of designning modern aircraft. The F-35, F-22 and Eurofighter Typhoon all went over budget and time estimates but are all in service, so why not the Nimrod MRA4, and scrapping all the airframes so the project couldn't be restarted smacks of the TSR2 programme debacle.
@@TravelRoss I appreciate the response, I just think it's a shame that another UK made aircraft that would have very likely been an extremely capable world beating platform is scraped at a very late stage and yet again we buy US made airframes off the shelf because they have a monopoly in the aircraft industry which brings it's bonuses like operating costs. When you look at the F-35 there were a worrying amount of issues with that during it's late stage development and lots of concerns being raised over it's capability compared to cheaper alternatives yet it still got pushed through because it would have been massively damaging to their aircraft manufacturing industry to have done so. I think it's just a shame really that we gave up on it, I always liked the Nimrod, it performed admirably over decades of use and was in a league of it's own compared to the P-2, P-3, Atlantic etc.
@@arrrgee The MRa4 was nowhere near ready to enter service, most of the airframes to be converted were still bare Shells sat at Woodford, it was an accident waiting to happen the only real crime is that British waste of space pocketed all the money and in return produced nothing.
This was back in 2017 but I didn't realize that that Nimrod Maritime aircraft was pretty much mostly brand new except for the main fuselage new Rolls-Royce engines completely new avionics and sensors
would love to own a couple of Nimrod MRA4 Maritime ASW Aircraft & lease them out to the Indian Navy!!! the Nimrod MRA4 under fuselage internal weapons bay has to be armed with 3 Exocet AM39 anti ship missiles & 2 MU90 guided torpedoes!!! the MRA4 seriously needs taller front & rear landing gear in the interest of additional ground clearance between what's underneath the aircraft & tarmac!!!
From Wikipedia.... However, the project was subject to significant delays due to cost overruns and contract re-negotiations. The numbers of aircraft to be procured fell from twenty-one to nine over a course of years, while costs continued to climb. The MRA4 was ultimately cancelled in 2010 as a result of the Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR), at which point it was £789 million over-budget and over nine years late.
A truly shameful and humiliating chapter in British aviation history and highlights Britain's inability to build new aircraft or even refurbish or upgrade existing aircraft.
And after all this hard work and massive achievement. Their hopes and dreams were literally torn to pieces in front of them, courtesy of those wonderful pin headed, pencil necked civil servant’s. Again. Way to go MOD......
They tried to conceal the scapping by doing it in between two hangars on the other side of the field with tarpaulins closing the ends of the space. However, somebody in the factory tipped off the local news and they put a helicopter up and got shots of it. The next day, there was a no-fly zone over Woodford... Never seen so many adults in tears over something that isn't a person or a pet. Building aircraft isn't like building toasters...
Was mistake to order it, I mean it looks cool as heck. but it wasn't working properly after 4 £BN, needed more investment (likey much more) and would have been a financial black hole to support.
I agree that it should never have been started, indeed, I distinctly remember reading about the proposal in the aviation press long before I got a job there and thinking that it was a daft idea. However, by the time it was cancelled, all of the time delays had already been incurred and all of the cost overruns had already been spent, so the only way to get ANY of that back was to see it through to completion. Cancelling it when they did just made sure that the money was totally, 100% wasted, instead of actually getting us something for it.
@@Ibirdball TSR2 suffered from being all British. Too many conflicting contractors, dreadful serviceability (just check how difficult an engine change was), vast cost over runs, technical faults (undercarriage). No other customers. It would have taken years to be right and had a very limited mission profile. Engine swap in a Tornado is about an hour and the list goes on and on. For taxpayer value the Tornado has been unbeatable and the British have had plenty of work out of over 992 airframes. Far more work than the 70 or so TSR 2s we might have built...so no, I don''t think I have missed the point at all. The right thing was. somewhat sadly, to ditch TSR2..
I've always been fascinated by the preference of British engineers to incorporate their engines in the wing. One would think that space would be great for additional fuel.
YELLOW HAT PRODUCTIONS oooh rivet joint, yay. WTF was buying that all about. It’s like “well I’ve only got a B29 in a shed with no engines, or this 60 year old pile of junk with an XBox sellotaped to it.” MOD is like “yay, it’s piss poor but it’s cheap to us, here’s some more money to poo down the toilet, we love Americay”
Perhaps with the benefit of hindsight the MR4 was just a upgrade step too far ,should have gone for a new Aircraft type instead.Would love to know if the Kawasaki P1 might have been a better option over the P8 though.
@Brian Coley Turboprops can be picked up by submerged enemy subs, jet engines make it almost impossible. Nimrod would often shut down 2 of them just to save fuel, making them like ghosts to enemy subs.
@@Aeronaut1975 As a former submariner I concur with your comment, we could hear a P3 circling above just as easily as detecting a skeleton having a wank in a biscuit tin the Nimbats were considerably quieter.
As much as the Nimrod MRA4 would have been an interesting aircraft I think the tragic loss of XV230 in 2006 over Kandahar kind of tainted the prospects for MRA4 entering RAF service (notably the fuel pipe problem which was covered in a BBC Panorama documentary).
The Mod should have dumped that plane decades before the great financial loss they undertook the uk with. In the end Bae admitted they could not get the plane to do what they planned it to. such a shame loosing Woodford out of that decision.
A bit of foresight on this project would've gone a very long way, into deciding if it was worth it or not. A lot of people who's jobs were reliant on the Nimrods both at Kinloss and Woodford lost out.
Did anyone else cringe when Captain SkyGod walked up the stairs proclaiming 'At last, we can start the real work of the day"? Thank you, on behalf of all sincere and humble pilots who don't see themselves as the apex of the wider industry, for subtly denouncing all the efforts that gave you reason to walk up those stairs.
Yup, typical aircrew "God syndrome". Probably ex military. Not saying all military aircrew are like this wanker, but I have met more with this type of attitude in my 20 years in the Air Force than my 20 years in civil aviation.
Your test crew inc pilots brought your creation to life. That said the pilot was referring to their own preparations, trawling through the final briefings and paperwork but really looking forwards to launching the beast into the sky.
Interesting that it was cancelled for a Boeing aircraft who are once again being investigated for dodgy deals with procurement. Probably paid out a few back handers to get it cancelled just like with the AEW version of Nimrod getting cancelled for a Boeing replacement
I thought our politicians were supposed to help to instill pride throughout the country, and bolster industries that we, the country,, excelled in.......... How wrong was I. Its a real shame that we've had such a bag of rats for governments, really since world war two. Think where we would be if we had governments with patriotism and vision, instead of greed and back handers. Shame on them.
I don't have enough knowledge of the programme to really know, but it looks good and to me it seems like a huge waste of effort when they scrapped the whole thing. Why not at least save one?
Save $4bn but waste £39bn on the EU... No thanks. Next time please please please let's bring it to service entry and keep our know-how. It seems to me the politicians are actually anti-British.
How is it a waste, to support our cultural brothers and sisters: many of whom liberated from tyranny by our collective political and military diligence? So many casual ‘once-in-a-lifetime, here today gone tomorrow’ voters rejecting solidarity with a unique cluster of mostly contiguous democracies. What relevance has the EU to disastrous decisions both engineering and political which GB and GB alone is responsible for? Our very existence as a United Kingdom is now in jeopardy. I had hoped never in my lifetime to consider that the term ‘regional instability’ would apply to my own nation.
It wouldn't pass me the yanks told the government to scrap the Nimrod like they did for the TSR2, this country is far advanced in aviation than the yanks and they don't like it
I wish but BAE made a complete mockery out of it, quadruple the budget and a decade late, its sad that they cancelled it after it was so close but I hope it taught BAE not to dillydally and mess with the MOD, but its sad to see what could of been. Instead of buying all american like we are today.
MichaelKingsfordGray Or then again you may be right. Hard to find evidence given the secretive nature of this business. Not the technology I mean but the deal making processes. No Plankton refers to my memory capacity.
It's impossible to devlope a defence system (be it a complete aircraft or a sub system) becuase almost every major software package today that is a component of any major piece of kit is American and requires American consent to utilize.
Yet another political handshake with the US across the pond in favour of their P8 Poseiden, yes there were delays as with everything and budgets were exceeded, however that far down the line to have cancelled the project and scrap the aircraft was criminal. I was on the Nimrod AEW MK 3 from Dec 1982 until Aug 1987 when it too was scrapped in favour of Boeings E3D AWACS at the loss of heaven knows how many billions of pounds, yes there were problems at the time which I won't go into but nothing that wasn't insurmountable at the time. Just a quick mention of TSR2 also, another British aircraft scrapped in favour of an American aircraft. The governments of this country have systematically poured hundreds of billions of pounds down the drain and then had to dip into the coffers again and give the American aircraft industry a blank chequebook, no small wonder we no longer have an aircraft industry in this country when we used to lead the field, the Americans were way behind in the game until they got hold of German technology and squirreled it out of the country after the second world war.
Nimrods Based from de havilland comets which is very efficient design Really old design but very innovative Dunno why brits prefer turbopros p8 poseidons? Rather than this advanced and fast nimrods Ooh anyway nimrods can go slow too due to traditional delta wing design
Watch from 16.25.00 of this parliament video, which tells you the 9 bae manufacturing sites that are now closed, www.parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/dacccb21-1e9f-478a-99e1-f47928be038f
what a waste of money. take a dozen old airframes that are all slightly different, spend millions redesigning the aircraft with new engines, new wings etc. does not take a rocket scientist to see this is not going to end well. could have bought some airbus jets for substantially less & got the benefit of commonality and quantity production economies. the disaster of the MRA4 is only eclipsed by the AEW3 also cancelled after even more billions spent. this project was later than a south west train :'(
Presumably he had a fat paycheck from BAE and every interest in keeping the madness going on as long as he could. It was £3.8bn for nine aircraft by the end. With an unknown additional large amount the queens pounds required to get the damn thing to fly properly, be certified and be serviceable. When it was finally axed the list of replacement options was rather short.
@@OleLeik They were almost complete and the US replacement cost about £3.2bn, so we loose all that indigenous expertise and kill off any further airplane development while everyone else is doing the opposite. Boeing said they will invest in the community except we pay them £3.2bn to do so. The delay and 'madness' was caused by interference from government types that do not understand how not to get in the way. My father retired from aviation thoroughly disillusioned with both left and right government for the way they managed to trash good projects and then blame the workforce.
@@stephenskinner3851 I rather liked the look of it with those large nacelles, if only those wings would have fitted properly. Classic case, not for the first or last time, of assuming "it'll be easier, cheaper and quicker just to modify an existing system" and finding just how painfully misplaced that optimism can be. MR4 was 9 years late and there was still more than 100 major issues to rectify before it could be granted airworthiness. It was a BAE cashcow and the upkeep of 9 bespoke De Havilland Comet airframes left flying in the world and their weaponsystems would have costed a fortune. I belive the contract for the 9 P-8 Possedions + support was costing less than the MR4 prosject did up to the point it was axed.
If you don’t want cost overruns stay away from BAE , I’ve never known a company like it , they always put a lower bid in to make sure they get the job then once the program is under way they go back and renegotiate it . I know this because I used to work for them . Stay away!! Great shame as it would of been a good aircraft.
Incredible waste of money. An aircraft for submarine chasing with a wing meant for high speed cruise performance. No slats or anything else . Flaps only allowed it to crash into Toronto harbor without a chance to recover
MoD defence procurement in gross dissary once more. Billions wasted. The same thing occures over and over and it is, I have to say, a national disgrace. Garry Harriman, South Carolina. RAF, 1987-2006.
British governments have a marvelous reputation for cancelling groundbreaking aircraft, and wasting billions of pounds that the taxpayer gave them. TSR2, AEW Nimrod, MRA4 Nimrod. Britain could still be leading the world in aviation,but for the short sighted government. Now we follow America, and give them our billions instead. What happened to national prestige and loyalty to our workforce. Bloody appalling.
A lot of military aircraft are rarely known for their good looks, but in getting the job done. (Although in this case, this Nimrod variant never got the chance).
