Now, I confess to knowing nothing about RAF hardware, but I thought this may interest those who do.
A painstakingly restored De Havilland Comet airliner outfitted as an anti-submarine patrol plane, has made its first flight.
The Nimrod MRA4 programme was initiated back in 1996 by TV presenter, one-time dirctor of BAE Systems and former New Statesman theatre critic Michael Portillo, who was defence minister at the time.
Under the original deal, BAE Systems would be paid a 'fixed' price of £2.2bn to rebuild, rearm and upgrade the RAF's fleet of 21 Nimrod MR2s, the last De Havilland Comet airframes left flying in the world, to the point where they would effectively be new aircraft. This would have meant a cost of just over £100m per plane.
As time went by (remember it is 13 years since the beginning of the project), it became clear that the price was not fixed and the MoD now estimates the programme's overall price tag as £3.6bn, an increase of more than two-thirds. The name was changed to Nimrod MRA4. In fact the situation is much worse than this as the number of planes has had to be slashed to prevent even worse cost overruns. The RAF will now receive just 9 aircraft instead of 21.
As a result the cost per plane has actually quadrupled: each MRA4 will now have cost the taxpayers £400m and this is without allowing for the fact that the original planes, supplied for upgrade by the government, had already cost a substantial sum.
This makes the Nimrod MRA4 not only the most expensive British military aircraft ever made but one of the most expensive aircraft in the world: you could buy a flooet of space shuttles or stealth bombers for the price the UK is paying to have restored 1950s vintage airliners.
Sensible or silly use of money? You choose.
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More home cinemas & sunny holidays I'm thinking
Tcheuchter, I was just thinking, I wonder if any other western military have to wait 13 years for hardware which could be well out of date by delivery?
Subrosa,
this may sound barmy but if you own all the camel no one can deny you use of the camel.
In the good old days we weren't just keeping an eye on the "enemy" camels.
That's why back then, no expense spared, we needed our own camel.
Barking but that is war.
We are Albion.
Yup, will be great for tracking and combatting the Taliban threat in Afghanistan. Won't be to long before they have Nuclear subs! Mind you they will find it hard using them since they're land locked. Mind you I'm sure Gadaffi will help give them a bas.
War is madness Incoming, but it makes lots of money for some.
Strangely enough OR, I'm sure they have enough money to buy them and someone would be very happy to supply them.
Yes SR, and on past peformance, I wouldn't be surprised to find it was someone very close to us.
The reference to "restoration of the De Havilland Comet" is probably the cruellest and most cynical description of this project I have ever heard. It is also the most accurate description! When you describe it in these terms, it is barking mad.
The equipment and engines are reportedly too heavy for the airframe. That is a very bad start. Also, modern airframes are mass-produced by machine to standard patterns. Each of these Nimrod airframes is individual and has been individually maintained over the best part of half a century. Can't simply fit a new wing for example....whole thing has to be re-engineered individually for each airframe rather than for a single fleet.
It has caused unsafe airframes to be operated past their lifetimes with loss of life.
This is shaping up to be worse than the disastrous "NimWacs" AEW project....in the end we bought "off the shelf" Sentry Boeing airframes, recently referred to by George Roberson as an example of a good procurement decision.
The shame is that the Nimrod "concept" is both essential and unique to the UK - all other nations use propellor-driven airframes. We should simply buy commercial jets and refit them.
At this rate, it will be back to the Shackleton...
Jess, I was hoping you would see this article.
Most comments I've heard have been negative too. No use in the likes of Afghanistan either are they?
What a complete waste of money. Someone or more should be sacked.
Do say who tris, I can think of a few who would fit the bill.
I’m impressed!
No sooner has SUBROSA posted re; “Most Expensive RAF Aircraft Ever…”, than BAE Systems announce the closure of their Woodford (Nimrod) factory and the loss of some 1116 jobs.
All the MOD has said about the tragic loss of such a unique and skilled workforce was “job losses are always to be regretted and are most unfortunate for those affected”
Soon our much loved frontline fighting men and women will have no, home grown, technological back-up as our defence industry withers and dies.
Jings JRB, thanks. I know it takes a bit to impress you :)
Your last paragraph says it all.
For a very long time our defence procurement has been both inefficient and, I believe, corrupt. This would account for the outrageous delivery times and the inflated prices of equipment.
Civil servants and members of the government who have been at the MOD should be permanently debarred from taking any position in the defence industry after leaving public office.
It's in the detail that the contracts and cost over-runs take place. For example (and experience) when the initial radar spec was agreed for the AWACS version it was to be able to track five independent targets, however by the time it it should have been delivered (and the Conservatives had bought the US system in frustration) the rader could now track every car going up and down the A1. I well recall the derision on TV about it at the time but that's what the RAF specified! I bet we could use it now in Afganistan!
I agree a more modern airframe should have been used - a poor attempt at cost reduction reusing the comet.
The realy bad news in this article is of course the loss of the Nimrod workforce. More skills gone and probably a pointer that, having been extremely poor specifiers over the years, the MOD might be going to start buying more stuff of the shelf ready made
Tcheucter, those responsible should be sacked. We shouldn't be employing people of such incompetence.
Of course I mean politicians as well as civil servants.
Yes Dram, devasting for the workforce.
There's nowhere else for such highly skilled people to go is there? So, once again vital top skills will be lost in this country.
Reminds me of Maggie's destruction of industries.
Nimrod is in fact very useful in Afghanistan, which is why the MR2 is being flogged to death. It has an imagery intelligence role and plenty of radios, other stuff as well. Nimrod R1 is worth a Google, very capable (ahem) as well.
The trouble - as this excellent post points out - is that the airframe is ancient. Check out the bulgy bits to see the extra space needed outwith the original contours for the bits and bobs. As I mentioned earlier, these airframes are so ancient that they were individually constructed and have individual parameters and specifications, same as WW2 aircraft.
This is a complete failure of vision. The Nimrod is a world-class concept, years ahead of its time and the only maritime surveillance jet aircraft in operation (the USAF Rivet Joint and JSTARS are jet airframes with bucketloads of sensors but for different roles). The concept should have been brought into the 21st century using an entire new airframe and there are plenty out there. A common airframe with the new ASTOR platform should have been used...but that would have been too sensible.
Jess, I know there's been a lot of work put into them by signal and communication experts but I didn't think they would be useful in Afghanistan because of bulk. I've misunderstood my expert's opinion (one of those people with the tech/communications knowledge).
Where was the failure? in the RAF advice or the MoD do you think?
Ahh...where do you start?
The defence budget is set in stone for five year blocks. There was an annual vote but this was scrapped by Labour. So, at any one time, there is literally no new money. Even the so-called Treasury reserve for Iraq/Afghanistan is clawed back from MoD budgets.
Complex procurement programmes take years to get off the ground. The specification changes many times within the life cycle of the project, as technology, tactics and theatres all change. Nimrod MRA4 was meant to be Nimrod 2000.
Systems interoperability is a nightmare. Integrating systems within a platform is bad enough, before considering single-Service integration, the joint operating environment, NATO requirements and then coalition operations. I believe there is an underlying push to be US compatible that is not entirely removed from US commercial interests.
However, the biggest failure in MRA4 is the one you point out. It is a legacy airframe. This is a no-brainer. I cannot understand why this decision was made....unless it was because of political interest in seeing the contract went to BAE Systems, which is probably the case! (Contract was awarded in December 1996, blame the Tories if you wish, but Labour would have done the same) Exactly the same with NimWacs...take the best airframes, tear them to pieces, rebuild them in a way that does not work....
Note that the wing and cockpit owe much to Airbus anyway....
Nimwacs was British Aerospace, didn't mention this explicitly in the post above....
I remember when there was an annual vote. In recent years I've been out of the 'active' loop and rely on others to keep me informed these days, but not in hardware of course because my brain fails me when it comes to that.
You may well be right about the push to be US compatible. That makes sense of something I was told quite a while ago.
Jess other countries don't wait 13 years for hardware, at least Germany and Switzerland don't - even I know that.
So it was politicians who messed all this up. That's what I expected.
Only quadrupled? Why, even that thing doon Holyrood way managed to add a zero to the right of the original estimate :-)
Well quadrupled per se berenike. Don't forget all the sweeteners with promises of other contracts and lavish erm necessary hospitality.
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