Hawker Siddeley Nimrod

The British Aerospace Nimrod maritime patrol aircraft is derived from the DeHavilland Comet, the worlds first jet airliner. It is unique in being the only land based jet-powered maritime patrol aircraft in service today (The other jet-powered maritime patrol aircraft such as the S-3 Viking are primarily deployed on aircraft carriers) and benefits over its propeller-powered competitors, the American P3, French Atlantique and Russian May through it's range and speed.

Originally delivered to the Royal Air Force in the 1970s the Nimrod serves in two variants, the (R) variant in a reconnaissance and intellegence gathering capacity and the (MR) version in the Maritime reconnaissance version. Upgraded to MR(2) standard in the early 1980s the maritime Nimrods are due a further full airframe upgrade to MRA(4) standard, to be completed around 2004.

The Nimrod MR(2) is based at RAF Kinloss in Scotland and flown by 210, 120, 206 and 42(R) Sqns, The Nimrod R is based at RAF Waddington in England and flown by 51 Sqn.

Another development of the Nimrod is the ill-fated AEW version, which was developed in the 80s to replace the aged Shackleton AEW aircraft of the RAF. It lost out to the already established Boeing E3 platform.