In article ,
(Eunometic) writes:
(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.

Nimrods are a bit faster than P-3s. That's not really relevant
though, when looking for submarines. They're both big enough, fast
enough when need be, and slow enough when need be. The Orion beats in
wrt fuel consumption, The efficiency of the sensor suites is about
equivalent, with a little seesawing back & forth depending on what
point in time you're comparing the two.

It's kind of ironic that the Orion also grew out of a semi-successful
1950s airliner with a troubled beginning - the Lockheed L-188 Electra,
the fastes of the Western prop-driven airliners (The Tu-114 can beat
it) L-188s also suffered a spate of mysterious crashes. In their
case, it was a resonant vibration in damaged engine mounts that
induced fuilure in the wing spar. Like the COnet, it got fixed (A bit
more quickly - they didn't have to redesign the entire airplane), but
it took time to rebuild public confidence, and the introduction of
pure jets on U.S. Domestic routes killed off demand.


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)

Not really. The fan sections are entirely exposed within the ducts,
and they're spinning pretty fast - that makes the return scintillate,
which makes it easier to pick out of clutter, if you know how to look
at it. With that big honkin' wing, and the large, slab sided
fuselage, even if it was a bit less obvious, it's a distincion without
a difference.

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.

Asymmetric operation with an Orion isn't much of a big deal, either,
although it can be a handful in some circumstances. Remember that it
had to be able to climb out on 3 engines on takeoff, with a load of
passengers aboard.

Early on, it was policy on teh P-3 to patrol on 2 engines. The
occasional difficulty in getting them both started again, and the need
to have as many alternators running a possible to supply th
electrical buses has changed that so that they only cage 1
engines. (The last I heard - one of my former bosses was a Navy
Reserve P-3 Pilot)

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.

P-3s are good for about 4500 NM, including 3 hours stooging around at
20,000', and 1 houf chasing contacts at 200', with a 10% reserve.

As for what it carries, we've got all teh Cruise Missile carriers the
START Treaties will allow. (That's what happens when you're a Major
Nuclear Power ) So we can't fit Tomahawks or ALCMs. However, it
will carry a whole raft of Harpoons & SLAM-ERs, which are Cruise
Missiles of a somewhat more subdued nature. I don't recall if
anybody's stuck a Sidewinder on a P-3, but there's no reason why you
can't. A SIrewinder requires a standard rack to fit the rail to, soem
wires to wake it up, and some wires to insert the seeker's growl into
the intercom system.
AMRAAMs are right out, for either. While an AMRAAM has an active
seeker, it still needs a fighter-type Fire COntrol System to properly
program it before launch.


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

As for the Nimrod being a mini-B-52, well, we've got B-52s to fill
that role.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster