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No nevermind, the Nimrod was developed from the Comet 4B civil airliner.
The Comet was a far better aircraft than the Boeing 707 which was a copy of the German pod engine designs of the 1940,s.
Boeing priced everyone else out of the jet airliner business at the time as always.
There is even talk, that the Comet disasters were not after all caused by bad window design!
My Uncle was one of the Comet designers and he had to keep very quit by government order.
The first modification to Concorde spec, did not have re fueling facilities and IMO it was the later modification, that installed extra tanks, a probe and internal piping that put the aircraft at risk, although the designs were sound.
The pipes from the refueling probe pass close to the wing root mounted engines and age and cost cutting by government has resulted in an over operated aircraft system, becoming vulnerable to leaks and fires.
The in air refueling was essential to extend the aircrafts range. The reasons are as follows.
The size reduction of British protectorates abroad resulting in fewer land air bases for the RAF to operate from around the world.
The absurd lap dog politics of British government, promising our operational aircraft in the service of Dreamland, that far over stretches their capability due to the governments refusal to invest sufficiently in the aircrafts operational requirements.
The scrapping of other suitable aircraft such as the Vulcan and various versions of the Victor, VC10 and others, thus over loading the Nimrods tasking.
The first version of the Nimrod in Maritime service was a very reliable aircraft that I had some involvement with.
It was a mainstay of the NATO cold war maritime defense and was the first turbo jet maritime land based large combat aircraft.
Others in service in NATO were mostly turbo prop or piston. Argos, Neptune, Atlantic and for a time the Avro Shackleton (from the Lancaster).
The Vulcan started as one of our three V bombers that carried nuclear weapons nevermind. Vulcan, Victor and Valiant.
The remaining Victors were converted to tankers and are probably as vulnerable to leaks as the Nimrods, although yank modified Boeing 707's make up most of the NATO fleet.
The Vulcan's were converted to conventional strategic bombers (Falklands) before being scrapped, which was ludicrous as they are far better than the yankee doodle B52's.
The Valiant was scrapped after the nuclear V bomber fleet was disbanded.
Dream on keithgerrard@gerrard24.freeserve.co.uk
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