(Peter Stickney) wrote in message . com...
Peter Skelton wrote in message . ..
On Mon, 26 Jan 2004 00:49:41 -0500, (Peter
Stickney) wrote:
To add some Military Content. The groundings and losses did not
necessarily mean the immediate scrapping of the Comet I. DH _did_
infact, come up with a rebuild program that would allow the airplane
to have some useful life. The only Comet Customer who took them up on
this was the Royal Canadian Air Force, which had purchased two Comets
to support the First Air Division in Europe. These remained in
service until the early 1960s.

ISTR Comets in service with Freddie Laker into the 70's. Dan Air
used them until Nov. 3, '80 (something over 110 passengers which
must have been fun.)

Those were Comet IVs, not Comet Is. Basically an entirely new
airframe with a Comet-like shape. They were entirely redesigned
structurally, and a bit larger. (71,760 kg MTOW rather than
47,620 kg) They used Rolls Avons (With about twice the push)
rather than the centrifugal DH Ghosts.
The Comet IV was actually a pretty good airplane. Unfortunately,
it took about 4 years to get the Comet IV redesigned and off the
ground. By that time, instead of competing with DC-6s and Lockheed
749 Constellations, it was competing with the Boeing 707 and the
Douglas DC-8. At that point, it was too slow, and too short-ranged.
(Pan Am 707 used to take off about a half-hour after BOAC Comet IVs,
and they made a point of announcing when they passed the Comets
somewhere between Iceland and Greenland.


With a modified Fueselage it of course became a great maritime patrol
aircraft known as the Nimrod. Nimrod is apparently superior than the
Orion: at least as far as the airframe is concerned.

The burried engines ( speys and now BMW/Rolls Royce BR715 ) provide a
significantly reduced radar signature. (Here lies the disadvantage of
burried eingines: installing high bypass ratio engines required
re-engineering of the wing roots)

The engines which are close to the fueselage mean that opperation with
engines shutdown does not create significant asymetric thrust
problems. Indeed opperation on 2 engines is I believe normal on long
loitering patrols.

The latest Nimrods I believe have a range in excess of 6500nm and can
launch cruise missiles. They can be armed with sidewinders and
presumably AMRAAM style self homing missiles is a possibility.

With the correct systems and sighting they might even provide the RAF
with a mini B52. The big wings must provide good altitude
performance.