RAF Jaguars Nimrods

[Royzee617]

An old clip from about the time when the RAF were off to Iraq the first time.

 

[Nonskimmer]

Interesting clip. It was nice to see the Jaguars again.

 

[Royzee617]

I agree. Sad they will be gone soon. Now where did I put that vid of Les Voltiges?

 

[plan_D]

Oh god, the Nimrod what a waste of money and time that was. My dad spent 4 years keeping one of those things running at RAF Finningley. I went in it several times. I'll never know why we didn't just by E-3 Sentries

 

[Nonskimmer]

I remember one that crashed into Lake Ontario during an air show back in '95. The kicker for me was, I'd met the crew about four days before that when they toured my ship in Halifax. Damn shame.

 

[trackend]

It was only picked for political reasons that is to support the UK defense industry.

 

[plan_D]

Politics tends to screw up military matters, so that's understandable.

 

[Royzee617]

That Nimrod AEW was a shame because technically it was said to have better radar then the AWACS. Ugly brute tho. I remember seeing them mothballed at RAF Abingdon for years.

 

[Royzee617]

BTW I think the Nimrod ASW is probably one of the best of this class of plane extant. Great at airshows too. Pretty good safety record too.

 

[plan_D]

It was said to have been better than the E-3 Sentry but it wasn't. The equipment didn't even work in the Nimrod. I hardly consider something based on the Avro Comet design modern.
Despite my dislike of the aircraft generally, I loved playing in the one at RAF Finningley.

 

[Royzee617]

It was all a political mess the AEW. We started buying AEW radar from the yanks for the RN so why we didn't just carry on I dunno. I hate to think how much money was wasted. Someone told me that heat was a problem for Nimrod. Radar and computer electronics get hot so they use fuel to cool it hence you can't empty the tanks hence the range/duration is cut.

 

[Royzee617]

I was reading just the other day in an old mag about the offsets Boeing agreed to place with UK companies to ge the E£ in the RAF. Wonder if anyone checked em out?
Plus the MoD et al kept changing the spec. Crazy.
Maybe they should put the Macaroni radar in the new giant Airbus? LOL.
Finally, Marconi were also too long in getting the AEW's partner radar, the Foxhunter into service... remember the old 'Blue Circle' radar joke. The jury is still out on the ADV Tornado too... Is it crap or just a bomber destroyer and hence is obsolete coz that mission is no longer valid? IMHO it is an elegant plane.

 

[plan_D]

The English Electric Lightning had fuel cooling, pure genius. Heat was a problem with the Nimrod, the equipment tended to burn out quite often.

The Tornado is an expensive heap of junk. I don't think the civilian society understand how many Tornados were delivered and put straight into moth balls because of faulty equipment and airframes.
It can't take off without re-heat. It's RAD-ALT used to bounce off it's under-carriage. It can't do 'First pass-first strike' which was the reason it was considered modern. Retired Bucaneers still have to help it.

 

[the lancaster kicks ass]

hey stop bashing the nimrod i love that plane!!

and pD it was based on the De Haviland Comet, not the Avro....

 

[plan_D]

Yeah sorry..I knew what I was thinking of, the airliner. And the Nimrod was a dump plane. Why do you think we soon bought E-3 Sentries? I used to mess around in the Nimrod, I got to play with the stall tester too...oh, women would love that thing...

 

[cheddar cheese]

I hate the Nimrod too. Talk about ugly...

 

[plan_D]

That's not the reason it was a poor aircraft, but okay...