Those seat covers dont go with the decor in that cockpit.

Perhaps not, what surprised me was only five seats in the cockpit and a few more modern looking looking avionic screens for both pilots and route Nav, more used to seeing two flight engineer stations to starboard but not on this jet – Mike

Last time I saw 46 was back in Dec 2007

– Mike

For instructions on changing the battery have a read of This Thread. You will need a size 5 Torx bit and I would suggest a can of WD40, when you get it in bits and need to pull the battery from the PCB (yes they stupidly glued the battery to the PCB) disconnect the battery and spray WD40 to soften the glue – Mike

If it charges from the PC then it will charge from a working CLA (Ciggy Lighter Addapter), if your CLA is dead try a trip to Halfords and purchase a new one, sweet talk them and they will probably let you try it in the car prior to purchase to see if it cures the issue.

As for the old CLA (assuming you have got one), if its not working put it in the bin as these have a nasty habit of supplying 12V straight to the device which produces smoke, once the smoke gets released the device fails to work and is beyond ecconomic repair.

I would assume you have a 920 (290 never existed) as such it should cover Western and Central Europe as well as North America although if the maps are up to date it will be running from an SDHC memory card as the internal memory can’t hold the latest maps due to bloat. As a tip, if its got a memory card fitted put some sticky tape over the slot so the card can’t fall out, if you lose the card the device becomes a door stop – Mike

Actually I am starting to think we should look at seriously purchasing a variant of the Canadian AOPS. They are planning to build 6-8 of them, well add a number 9 to the build plan for the UK.

Sadly this makes too much sense to actually get through MoD procurement, even off the shelf they (MoD PE) will want modifications to the standard vessel.

A basic term such as COTS needs to be drilled in to MoD PE to save cash, COTS needs to mean COTS no modification or even a minor alteration isn’t possible, you are buying “off the shelf” in the same way we purchase domestic goods for use at home, ensure fit for purpose, but nothing else is altered to the end product.

Change something and it will, in comparison to true COTS cost a fortune (which means increased profit to the supplier) with a significant cost by MoD PE tracking said alterations which cost even more to the tax payer.

I have seen items that cost £19K go through at £38K each, no big deal until you find out they purchased 40+ of the items, thats £760,000 wasted on one single purchase. Yet another example of stupidity at the highest IMHO, apply the same logic to a multi million pound Ice Breaker and the waste gets even larger – Mike

If back when the initial MRA 4 project was started, someone had said no don’t use the old Nimrod airframes as the basis for the project, for reasons that have now become apparent, what would the RAF/MoD have gone for and what would the effect of this been on the demise of UK large aircraft manufacturing capacity?

The other two RMPA offerings at the time were the P3 Orion, either refurbished from stored aircraft kept in the desert or new build, the French offering never stood a chance having only two engines IMHO.

As for the effect on UK large aircraft manufacturing, I don’t see any difference between where we are today and if Nimrod MRA4 never got beyond the bid phase.

With the demise of the Nimrod MRA4 you have witnessed the final blow to any thoughts of large aircraft manufacture capability within the UK. OK so we still make wings for very large aircraft via the Airbus plants but these are not aircraft they are complicated sub-assemblies but not something that requires final assembly and system test/ flight test, UK aviation manufacturing is now limited to collaborative multi national programs where possible but no large aircraft – Mike

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

Having passed the Newark aviation site on countless trips to the RAF bases in Lincolnshire and beyond I finally decided to take a look inside earlier today and was more than impressed at the facility and hospitality on offer.

Perhaps I dropped lucky, right place, right time etc but within 20 minutes of arival I was sat in the Phantom sim followed by a sit in the Jaguar cockpit and spent a good 45 minutes plus discussing the aircraft and museum with Mick C and the two others (who’s names rather embarrassingly escape me).

May I take this opportunity to say thankyou to all for what was both a memorable and very enjoyable few hours. I will make sure I call in more often as there is far more than one can see in a couple of hours, well worth spending a full day given the chance – Mike