I’m the owner of the Nimrod AEW3 cockpit, XV259. This nose section (minus massive bulbous radome) is the last/only surviving AEW3 relic of the era. Having owned it since 1998 I’m considering its future and whether my time with it is coming to a close.
Presently XV259 is at Solway Aviation Museum at Carlisle Airport – I can’t speak highly enough of all involved there, they are a fantastic group to be involved with. I, and they, would be happy for the Nimrod to remain, but as I said, time moves on and I’m considering selling up. I’m aware of all the interest about Nimrods, sadly for all the wrong reasons and that efforts to save Nimrods have been difficult.
XV259 is a very visitor friendly cockpit, largely complete and moveable both practically and legally. I brought it from Essex to Cumbria on a self-drive 7.5 tonne flat-bed. Slightly hairy for the uninitiated, the drive was a bit of an adventure, but actually quite easy.
My heart is firmly with the preservation community, so rather hacking it about on eBay I thought it best to spread the word a little and consider options. It may be a project right for an individual too, there’s still more that can be done with it and, as I mentioned, the museum at Carlisle would still be happy to host it. Photos are available on Google searching for XV259.
Drop me a line on this forum, I’d be happy to talk about it.
By: Zebedee - 11th March 2011 at 16:18
Don’t rely on Googlemaps as it is always out of date.
Oh its ok im well aware of that… 🙂 My current day job is hacking the blighter… 😀 the way it handles latitude and longitude has reduced me to tears on more than one occasion… and the less said about the string encoding system the better…
Zeb
By: Robert Whitton - 11th March 2011 at 14:22
Had a peek on Google maps and you can still see at least 2…
I so want one for my garden…
Zeb
Don’t rely on Googlemaps as it is always out of date.
By: Zebedee - 11th March 2011 at 11:16
Had a peek on Google maps and you can still see at least 2…
I so want one for my garden…
Zeb
By: MJA01 - 11th March 2011 at 07:53
I haven’t been there for a few years, there should be plenty of surplus MR2 radomes at Kinloss these days though? – Mike
By: David Price - 11th March 2011 at 03:00
any more??
Question is, are there any more at Woodford golf course?
The woodford golf course shelters came from the Nimrod aircraft that were going for AEW mk3 conversion at the site they are MR1/ MR2 radomes.
I dug one of these up back in 1995 and took it back to Warton to fit to XV147, surprisingly all the fasteners still worked (we did have permission from the golf club to dig it up).
As for differences to the flightdeck, the flight engineers panel should have some extra gauges to monitor the fuel tank temperature. To overcome the issue of heat in the fuselage from the avionics heat was removed from the cabin using a liquid coolant, this was passed through a heat-exchanger to dump the heat in to the fuel. The hot fuel was then pumped through the wing skin stringers which acted like a giant radiator to dissipate the heat – Mike
By: TonyT - 11th March 2011 at 01:49
One of the foibles on the AEW apparently was they struggled to fit all the stuff they needed to run on the tiny hard drive used, 4 gig rings a bell.. fix would have been to fit a bigger one, BUT the contract was an open cheque book so they reaped the cash and persevered.
By: buccaneernut - 10th March 2011 at 20:04
On the subject of temperature back in the early 90’s i was involved in stripping out the Comet 4 AEW trials aircaft at RAE Bedford. One souveneir that i took was a gage for the radar temperature, that was in a prominent place in the cabin, i think the aircraft was XW626.
By: pagen01 - 10th March 2011 at 12:59
Thanks for that, so only minor details differ between AEW and MR flightdecks.
I knew someone who worked on the radar system for GEC/Marconi and mentioned the huge heat problems associated with the kit, he reckoned the radar was fantastic at its as cancelled form, and the Nimrod was a great aircraft, however the two together was just not a good recipe.
Again a case of trying to squeze just a bit too much into what is quite a tight fusalage.
By: TonyT - 10th March 2011 at 12:47
you could and it got worse, because of the heat generated by the kit on board the aircraft had to maintain a certain amount of fuel in the tanks for cooling, which is said to have been close to half her total tankage, hence restriciting her range somewhat.
By: smirky - 10th March 2011 at 09:50
” To overcome the issue of heat in the fuselage ….”
Wow! You couldn’t make it up 😀
By: MJA01 - 10th March 2011 at 08:04
The woodford golf course shelters came from the Nimrod aircraft that were going for AEW mk3 conversion at the site they are MR1/ MR2 radomes.
I dug one of these up back in 1995 and took it back to Warton to fit to XV147, surprisingly all the fasteners still worked (we did have permission from the golf club to dig it up).
As for differences to the flightdeck, the flight engineers panel should have some extra gauges to monitor the fuel tank temperature. To overcome the issue of heat in the fuselage from the avionics heat was removed from the cabin using a liquid coolant, this was passed through a heat-exchanger to dump the heat in to the fuel. The hot fuel was then pumped through the wing skin stringers which acted like a giant radiator to dissipate the heat – Mike
By: Arabella-Cox - 10th March 2011 at 07:48
Yep, at Woodford golf course. But is it AEW ?
.
By: pagen01 - 9th March 2011 at 22:47
Inside the flight deck is still AEW 3, and as it’s so intact, best to stay that way.
Interesting I was having a convo about this the other day, was the AEW.3 flightdeck any different to the MR.1?
It would look great as an MR.1 IMO, it would be nice to see a Nimrod, or chunk of, in grey and white.
By: Martin Garrett - 9th March 2011 at 22:32
Am I correct in recalling that a golf course oop north somewhere was given AEW radomes and they were converted into shelters for use on/around the course ?
By: David Price - 9th March 2011 at 22:26
Interesting photos; I did hear of a spare radome in Leics c/o David Walton some years ago. To do a refit would require lifting the whole thing on scaffolding/frame. More importantly of course, there’s the mounting section missing. However, it’s not impossible by any means.
To go back to MR1 would probably mean creating a new fibre-glass forward nose section, but probably only a ‘half’ nose due to height. The eye brows would stay but the probe would need to go. Not such a big job actually.
Inside the flight deck is still AEW 3, and as it’s so intact, best to stay that way.
By: MJA01 - 9th March 2011 at 20:42
David. Its a shame it can’t be put back to full mk3 status but when you consider the huge radome its far from viable, I do recall seeing the mk3 nose radome mold tools at Aston Down back in 1997 but they didn’t look in a good state of repair back then!
Take the radome off and there is the radar scanner support structure and nose wheel compartment forward extension.
This was as far as we took the structure back in 1996, the distinctive shape of the Comet can clearly be seen, the stringers on the outer skin under and around the nose would also have to come off to clean the lines up to look more like the Comet, and the “Eye-Brow” windows would have to go along with the IFRP.
Mike
By: David Price - 9th March 2011 at 20:11
MK1 History
I know with XV259 everyone associates it with AEW3 project, but of course, it’s initial career as a MR1 was still stirling stuff. Found a nice photo – long link!:
I see she also was on show at the 1977 Silver Jubilee event at Finningly. Pity the AEW 3 fiasco has been followed by yet another Nimrod no-show with the MR4.
I even wondered about removing the remnants of AEW3 fairings and restoring to MR1 standard and colours – maybe for someone else though!
By: Zebedee - 3rd March 2011 at 09:58
Ahhh…! Many thanks Mike… It all becomes clear…! sorry I doubted you… that actually clears up a hazy memory of seeing a Comet fuselage at Woodford whilst being driven to the flight sheds….
Zeb
By: spitfireman - 3rd March 2011 at 01:08
How heavy without the trolley and how wide at the widest point?
(I have a nice warm,dry building for her on a former Nimrod base alongside WT525)
Baz
By: MJA01 - 2nd March 2011 at 21:44
The Comet Fuselage used for the Iron Bird rig at Warton came from Woodford where it was used as a fire evacuation trainer for a few years, prior to this it had been in the water tank at Farnborough.
The Nose section of XV263 wasn’t needed for the fatigue rig work the fuselage was used for so it was removed from the “tube” at FRA Aviation (Hurn) and road hauled to Warton where it was joined on to the Comet fuselage to produce the “Iron Bird”.
The remaining section of XV263’s fuselage then had the cabin presure floor modified to MRA4 design at FR Aviation before road hauling to Woodford prior to its eventual road move to the Brough site for static wing fatigue testing in support of the MRA4 project.
The fuselage used in the fatigue rig at Woodford in support of Nimrod MR2 was infact XV148 one of the original Nimrod prototypes, only the cockpit section remains to this day being cared for and restored by its owner the author of the Air Britain Comet book, it even has electrical power applied to it these days with fully illuminated gauges and EL Pannels, most impressive from the photographs I have seen, even more so when you consider the state it was in when it left Woodford circa 1997 – Mike
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February 27, 2011 at 3:45 pm