Russian invasion of Ukraine

[west didsblue]

Nimrod was way over budget, late and beset with hundreds of design problems. I don’t disagree it was a questionable decision to scrap it but with my 2010 glasses on no one was expecting anything other than the usual cat and mouse stuff with Russia who by then were by and large fairly benign. No one was really paying much attention to China. All focus was on terrorism risks back then and ensuring energy supplies (ironic eh?) through close cooperation. We grew complacent.

As someone who worked on Nimrod MRA4 I can say its problems had largely been resolved and the characterisation of the issues related to it in 2010 were exaggerated for political purposes to justify its cancellation. If it had been cancelled 4 or 5 years earlier, the justification would have been true. However by 2010 the money was largely spent and the first aircraft had been delivered to the RAF and would have become fully operational within a year or two. The overspend was almost entirely related to its first few years of development but the programme pretty much ran to plan and cost for the final 5 or 6 years.

 

[west didsblue]

Nimrod MRA4 was a really bad idea from the start. Iirc it was only given the go ahead because it kept alive the uk aircraft defence industry.
From a technical point of view, spending money on a late 40’s design airframe, in the 21st century was bad.
There was also less than zero chance of any export sales.

The alternatives at that time werent much better though, the turboprop P3 based on a late 50’s airframe…
Could have been different if the UK had decided that it might be an idea to join the Boeing P8 at the sayart

I can't really argue with the fact that in the mid 1990s when it was proposed it was a bad idea, other than to say that something like 80% of the aircraft was new including wings, engines and all aircraft systems. The only legacy part was the fuselages. It was never expected to be exported either. The crazy thing is to spend all the money then scrap it when it's practically finished whilst pretending it had never flown. 5 of the aircraft had accumulated several hundred flying hours between them before it was scrapped.

 

[Kirkstall Blue]

BBC report (the 2 planes in the picture are the russian one)

Yes that’s the incident and now it has a fighter escort seems provocative by Russia.
Ben Wallace was saying just now defence needs more money the threat is their all the time

 

[CTID1977]

 

[CTID1977]

 

[CTID1977]

 

[bluethrunthru]

send this wee lass in undercover to get Putin

 

[BlueAnorak]

Day 249 Review

Ukraine Invasion Day 240: Kakhovska dam could be blown in Russian 'scorched earth' retreat

Threats continue in the combat area. The latest is Russia mining a major Dnieper river dam in the south. A report revealed that last month, Russian Su-27s fired a missile at an unarmed RAF RC-135 Rivet Joint electronics plane over the Black Sea. Key...

m.dailykos.com

 

[CTID1977]

 

[Blue Llama]

send this wee lass in undercover to get Putin

She will have somebody's eye out with that.