The Web of Evil

I have no idea what they're thinking. The MoD appears to have been victim of committee-think wrt. the Nimrods -- we've got them so we must of course keep repairing and upgrading them -- and not to have looked at the competition at all. (Possibly with encouragement from the main contractors for whom the Nimrod MR3-MR4 upgrade was a gravy train.) Then along comes the big swinging axe, wielded with enthusiasm but no great precision -- "this project is 100% over-budget and five years behind schedule! Kill it!" -- and no thought for the replacement.

I'd love to be proven wrong on this but I have a feeling that we'll have to lose an airliner off our coast (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/feb/09/scrapping-raf-nimrod-defence-risk) before the message gets through to the coalition.

PS: The diagram halfway down this page (http://www.spyflight.co.uk/MR4A.htm) (showing the bits of the MR4 that were to be built from scratch) ought to give you an idea of the scale of the "upgrade". George Washington's Axe, basically:

The most controversial decision taken by BAe in their study to determine the design for the MRA4, was to refurbish and reuse the fuselages of a number of old Nimrods for the new aircraft. To some extent this decision was driven by the desire of the MOD to procure a derivative of an existing aircraft. Although this decision probably enabled BAe to lower their overall bid for the contract, whilst probably also appearing to be really efficient to some Treasury bean-counter, in the event this decision created some unforseen problems and has contributed significantly to the long delay in the aircraft entering service. In retrospect, it would probably have been easier to have built completely new fuselages and although the original jigs were destroyed by BAe some time ago, reopening a complete assembly line would have enabled any number of aircraft to be built and the aircraft to be marketed and sold to other countries.