Our MkIIa P7350 is the a/c involved

Is she still in 603 markings?

What if the Fw-190 had been used by the Nazis in 1940 during the Battle Of Britain how would that have changed the outcome?

They would have been identified as captured French Curtiss Hawk 75s……:D

Noted in the Osprey Color series books on the F-86 stored in the desert . Very likely to have been snapped up by the F-86 drone program in the mid 1980’s.

Would be interesting to know the reference – IIRC Flight Sytems used Sabre 5 and 6s for their QF-86 program, rather than the 4 so it may only have been for spares

The Pom’s had four T-32’s being operated under the British Civil Rego’s, at the outbreak of WW2.

They were then grabbed and flown by the RAF.

Doubt they were flown much, if at all – very quickly passed to Maintenance status

ex-RAF Buffalo buried in a river bank in Burma or Singapore, exposed in the 60s and re-buried.

It’s the Nimrod MRA4 General Systems integration “Iron Bird”. Comet (G-ANLO) mid fuse, Nimrod AEW Nose, Nimrod MR2 Landing Gears, steel wings and tail……. all set up with MRA4 control actuators, hydraulic systems, monitoring electronics, flying controls etc (No clever weapons system bits, that was on another rig). Spent many a happy hour on this rig.

I don’t think that is what is in the picture! For one, the pic above is mid 80s – the MRA4 program didn’t start until early 90s? The fuselage of G-ANLO went to Woodford in 1973/4. Secondly there are no wings attached.

It’s listed as still being there in 1987 (as XP915) at least.

My guess as to it’s history:

1973/4 -mid 80s Used at Woodford as part of AEW Nimrod program (illustrated above) with mock up AEW done

Early 90s Forward fuselage moved to St Mawgan for Fire/BDR use (as in photo)

Main Fuselage used along with nose from scrapped AEW3 and other parts in the MRA4 rig

Thoughts?

Dave F, I dont think they are the same Comets, the one shown at Woodford has major mods to the nose, where as the one at Mawgan was completely standard with no signs of being worked on.
One interesting thing though, I have space modules removed from G-ANLO and I cant think why the BLEU would’ve of had them fitted, whereas an AEW mock up would!

The major mods on the Woodford example are a mock-up – if you look at the side view, and see where the radome starts (& the ‘major’ modifications), then it is all forward of where the nose on the St Mawgan example stops (and Remember G-ANLO/XP915 would have had it’s long nose probe removed at this point).

The Nimrod ‘double bubble’ on the lower fuselage only goes a few feet back from the radome (check the photo taken from the rear of the fuselage and you see where it stops) – I think it’s just a mock up that would be easily removed. In fact, I think you can just see the ‘marks’ from it on the nose section.

The other thing is that Nimrods (All Nimrods) retain the full Comet nose/ pressure hull structure under the revised lower radome/forward fuselage.

The fuselage of G-ANLO/XP915 has always been listed as being used as a ‘Nimrod test rig’ at Woodford following it’s withdrawal from use in runway arrestor tests. I’ve never seen anything as to what sort of ‘test rig’.

Heres a pic of the nose section, and a pic of Canberra T.4 WJ870 (Comet rear fuselage behind the nose) both taken in 1989. I have better pics but will have to dig em out.

Thanks for that. Interesting picture. Actually, the pic makes me think that the Woodford pic IS XP915 – compare the black taped (?) windows in the shot with the mock radome with the black squares round the window frames of the shot at St Mawgan.

She left RAE Bedford for Woodford in 1973. Wonder when she went to St Mawgan?

Anyone know for sure?