Kind of ironic

[TSR2]

Its all very well saying the cold war is over, and yes it is, but when this was all conceived it wasn't. British Aerospace has done all it could to kill off Woodford and Prestwick over the years when they slowly but surely killed off their Civil divisions. I feel really sorry for all those who will loose their jobs.

[DaveB]

I think Jim Cooper very nicely hit the nail on the head in two words.. job protection. While the Orion was probably a much safer bet and even with the liklihood that Woodfords days were numbered.. going for the MRA4 did keep a lot of folk in work for longer than would have been the case.. especially given the horrendous delays the project has suffered. Same happened to a large degree with Vickers/BAC in the 1-11/146 saga.

ATB

DaveB

[SkippyBing]

I think Jim Cooper very nicely hit the nail on the head in two words.. job protection

Yes, of course it probably would have been cheaper to buy more Orions/Poseidons from the US and pay the workers an extravagant redundancy pay off.

[Chris Trott]

I think you'll see the MRA.4's get supplemented with P-8 Poseidons before it's all said-and-done, but probably not supplanted.

[SkippyBing]

I seriously don't think we could afford P-8s now, that's the ASW budget gone for the next 50 years! The flip side is I can imagine the MRA.4s being worked to death to get value for money.

[basys]

Hi Folks

I don't think UK job protection was the major factor,
rather it was US job protection.

I'm sure we've had this discussion before -

P-3 Orion
Range: 9,000 km ( 5,600 mi)
Endurance: 12 hour plus
Insufficient payload capacity.

P8 -Poseidon
Range: 5,670 km (3,060 nmi)
Endurance: 4 hours plus

Nimrod
Range: 11,119 km (6,910 mi)
Endurance: 15 hours plus

Not sure how accurate those figures are,
but for the P-8,
try turning off two engines for increased loiter time.



US's P-3 replacement programme
P-8 has flown in it's structural configuration, (extra fuel tanks, etc),
but AIUI, as far as outfit, it's still an empty box.

BAE Systems initially bid to sell newbuild Nimrods to the US.
That was when BAE were a UK company,
nowdays it would be a different matter.



HTH
ATB
Paul