The Forgotten Sister.

[dodgy-alan 1,587]

The British Aerospace Nimrod AEW3 was a planned AEW aircraft intended as to provide airborne radar cover for UK the by the RAF. The project was designed to use the existing Nimrod airframe, in use with the RAF combined with a brand new radar system developed by Marconi Avionics. The first aircraft flew on 16th July 1980.

It was supposed to have taken around 2 years to develop however the project proved to be hugely complex and expensive for the British government, as a result of the difficulties of producing brand new radar and computer systems and integrating them successfully into the Nimrod airframe. Despite close to a decade's work, the project was eventually cancelled, with the RAF instead purchasing new build Boeing E-3 Sentry aircraft to fulfil the AEW requirement. The 3 protoypes and 8 production aircraft were delivered to RAF Waddington where the crews, (who up until that time had been flying the Avro Shackleton AEW2 using an ancient radar system, ) were trained to fly the new aircraft, albeit without the new radar being fully operational.

After cancellation the aircraft were stored and used for spares. The cost to the public had been over £1billion in spite of its original estimate of less than £500,000. It was a complete farce and questions were raised in parliament about the affair. Sadly the lessons were not learnt as the same thing happened to the ill fated Nimrod MRA 4.

Thanks for viewing

[mutley 4,498]

Thanks for sharing Alan,

It certainly wouldn't win any beauty contests but proves what a versatile airframe it was.

Cheers

[britfrog 180]

nice pics.

shame about the mra 4 being cancelled as it was a unique a/c. It was a completely new design sharing virtually none of its components with the original comet airframe although it still looked similar. so now we have an early warning a/c that cannot fly below 5,000 feet because it would corrode to quickly leaving us with no long distance air/sea rescue service at all. so next time a plane ditches 300 miles out in the atlantic and people survive, they better be good swimmers because our pathetic helicopter force can only go out 180 miles at some feeble speed. Also we no longer have the ability to detect russian subs under the water another minor thing HM gov overlooked, I wouldnt be a bit surprised if they buy back and put back into service the old shackleton !! between the labour party and the current shower they have succesfully made the uk less important than some 3rd world countries. is that a good rant?

[hurricanemk1c 195]

Great shots Alan, even though it's got a big chin

[allardjd 1,853]

More like the ugly step-sister. If ever there was a candidate for a nose job...

John

[dodgy-alan 1,587]

Thanks for sharing Alan,

It certainly wouldn't win any beauty contests but proves what a versatile airframe it was.

Cheers

The airframe was part of the problem, It was 26 ft shorter then the Boeing E3D but they tried to cram the same amount of equipment inside it. More in fact as it had to accomadate 2 synchronised radars. Like most computers these things generated a hell of a lot of heat and one solution to try and cool the systems was to run coolant pipes through the fuel tanks ! This though only worked if the tanks were more than half full so that then reduced the aircrafts useful endurance. That was just one of the problems they faced !!

[charlie 6]

Nice job Al, that is one ugly silhouette!