How the RAF Nimrod helped Britain win the Falklands War
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- Опубликовано: 22 дек 2022
- 2022 has marked the 40th anniversary of the Falklands conflict and Forces News has been speaking to veterans who were there.
RAF Nimrod aircraft patrolled the South Atlantic to guard against potential enemy attacks during the Falklands conflict. Derek Straw, who flew as a navigator on board, recalls those missions.
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I couldn't help notice his eyes faltered and filled for a few seconds when he recalled being told he could go back home. Some serious memories came back right there.
God bless him 👏👏
When driving a Nimrod crew to a hotel in Sicily using a US Navy school bus, a parked Fiat with a chain locked onto its steering wheel blocked our path in Catania. A crewman casually asked if I would like them to "spot" it for me. I agreed and without discussion they casually picked up and repositioned the car out of the way. This was I think 1981.
Def 1981, was on that Nimrod detachment at Sigonella Sicily, we stayed in a large hotel in Catania - remember it because Ronald Reagan was shot whilst we were there was March 1981.
It was 81 and we stayed in the Sheraton, I did three trip to Sigonella. stayed twice in Catania and another time on the base at Sig.
@cpgravenor you're probably right. My memory of a RAF crew I drove was a crewman asking if it was "jolly" because it was the Jolly Hotel we were headed to. My brother was stationed at a base in England that's now a cold war museum, he married a Liverpool woman.
@cpgravenor I just got a Christmas card from the mentioned brother and wife Sheila. Hope your Christmas goes well also. I was in London Christmas 1980 and remember great peacefulness walking around there on boxing day.
@@John-isAround I never got to stay at the Jolly hotel, I did get drunk there lol, but never stayed.
Still remember Nimrods flying in and out of RAF Gibraltar over the years.
Great aircraft ,great crews,thank you all involved, for your service.
Greetings from Gibraltar.
I missed Gib so much, I have been back twice, I was Nimrod Ground crew out Kinloss. in the 80's
I was hoping this would be a story emerging about the Nimrod flights from Chile over the Andes running backwards and forwards under Airline beacon codes (complete with ATC). I remember hearing that they were listening to "every phone call" in argentina. That must have been some multi-discipline operation.
They were the ‘other’ Nimrods we never spoke about, not the MR1 or 2 😁
The biggest fighter jet in RAF history. I flew in the back on more than one occassion and the crews on 201, 120 and 42(R) Sqn’s were the best. They could hunt a subs, prosecute the target, sink it if required and drop life saving equipment. Fantastic airframe and fantastic crews. Per Ardua Ad Astra. “Power to the hunter”. I still miss Kinloss
An Argentine 707 reconnaissance aircraft came across an MR2P tooled up, did an about turn and none were ever seen again!
Sadly I am old enough to have flown in RAF Comets out of Lyneham ....
Fighter jet???
@@michaeldunham3385 A Nimrod MR2 ran into a Argentine Air Force 707 during a recce sortie. The Nimrod couldn't do anything about it . Thus a crash program was done to fit AIM-9G Sidewinder missiles on to the aircraft which was trialled with the aircraft firing live missiles over Aberporth Range on 27th May 1982. After that the 707's stayed well away from the British shipping lanes. Nimrod was the biggest British aircraft to be fitted with an Air to Air Missile system.
@@richardvernon317 nope about 50% of what you said is accurate
@@michaeldunham3385 Lmao weak rebuttal
My Dad worked as a Draughtsman @ BAe Woodford back in 1982 and as I child I couldn't work out why he was coming home late every night. Turned out he was working on the fuel refueling design work on the Nimrod.
takes some bottle to go on what is essentially an antigue airliner in to a war zone above a freezing sea a long long way from any help, thank you for your story. Amazing to think its longer from the Falklands Conflict to now than it was from the end of WW2 to the Falklands one.
If you think the aircraft's antique, you should see some of the ships - HMS Hermes was laid down in 1944!
@@nemo6686 fair point but at least those boys had some little boats tided on the sides and some friends nearby.
I was working on the Beatrice oil rigs in the 80,s ,used to see nimrods practising, one flew so close I could see the pilot
Glad to hear that Derek and his RAF colleagues found Nimrod to be a great aircraft - I spent many an hour in the early 1970s working in HSA Woodford on the Mk II's design & development! 👍
The refuelling probes were stolen from scrapped vulcans and other aircraft. The fuel was transferred to the aircraft via rubber hoses wandering through the cockpit, across the cabin floor eventually ending up in a wing root tank ( 7?) for distribution to the rest of the fuel system. A complete bodge job held together with jubilee clips.
And....It worked!
SOP for Crab air 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Lateral thinking by the Engineers 👍 Main thing is that it worked
If it looks stupid but it works, it isn't stupid
@@yodaslovetoy The final modifications to make the fit permeant lead to an aircraft catching fire and crashing killing all 16 on board. Running both a high pressure fuel pipe and a hot air pipe through the same bay which was not fitted with fire detection or extinguishers was a major design flaw.
The nimrod carried four sidewinder missiles under the wings for self defence.
Only after the came across an Argentinian 707 doing what they were doing.
Oh, everyone thinks a combat mission is about the little, gunned-up, fast jets, and it so isn't! Well done you professionals.
And we all know of the scandalous cancelation of the MkIV which left us with virtually no ASW cover for the fleet, I believe we even had to beg the French for help to cover the Trident boats!
I went to Coventry airport to see a Nimrod engine run up in 2014. It was awsome. You can also go inside one at City of Norwich Aviation museum.
I was an A-Mech-P on Nimrods, if you push two engines to combat power, the ground for like 50 yards, will shake.
What a stupid decision to cancel, I was there as a contractor at Woodford where they were being built. The look of shock when it was cancelled from all the staff was unbelievable. While the planes were being dismantled, all the wiring was stripped out of the airframe, the next day someone was trying to find the wiring harness for the radar, I asked him why and he said that they were going to try to fit it to C-130!!.
One of the leaders who looked after PR-5 said the MR4 was better than anything else for the next 20years. Even with all the spares, 5 of the planes could be operational by the end of the year and did not need spares for the life of the aircraft. Alot of the staff were saying that because it was better than what America had and yet again they could not copy it like the Harrier they pulled strings to shut it down.
What a sad end
I closed the site down, now it's a housing estate.
I read about the Harriers being sold to Obama ...
The RR Jet engines were removed and the planes crushed.
Cameron & Co. had just spent £Millions on the Jet upgrades ...
David Cameron Britains WORST PM for nearly 60 years?
My Grandad, Donald Franklin was heavily involved with the design of the EMI Searchwater radar which was onboard this aircraft.
Sadly, the EMI (later Thales) factory in Wells, Somerset is long gone - now a modern housing estate.
We used to go for walks in the surrounding hills and could see scale model aircraft (now on display at RAF Cosford) being used in one of the quarries to test the radar systems being developed there.
A worthy military successor to the pioneering Comet , the world's first civil jet airliner , like the Franco- British Concorde maligned by US interests
His voice quietens while talking about secret plans. Oh, nearly forgot, thank you Sir, i watched riveted to the screen with that conflict.
11 years and two tours at Kinloss working 1st, 2nd, and 3rd (2.5) line aircraft legacy Rigger.
Great station, nearly as good as RAF Coningsby on the Jags (5 years).
The food at kinloss was great, the airmen’s mess was listed in Egon’s good food guide
Love to hear these stories. Great man
Sharkey Ward and 801 were the premier squadron. Without the advanced knowledge of Sharkey with regards the Blue Fox the land battle would never of been possible. Morts of 801 found half the pincer that sent the whole Argentine navy back to port. The radar signature of the Blue Fox on low level CAP was the deciding factor in the air battle.
Heroes
Fortunate that Britain still had Ascencion Island
and have 😎😎
Leased to the USA DoD
Any word on the tests to equip Nimrod with 1000lb bombs during the Falklands conflict? There were practice runs on Salisbury Plain at low level. But don't think it went ahead as Vulcans had precedence.
RAF Kinloss was my first posting, i fixed the GSE (no air power without ground power) and i went on a few flights with 120 Sqn. on one occasion we were looking for a Russian spy trawler in the north atlantic, when it was found we circled it for about 10 minutes. There was a seagull on our port wing i swear it did not move as i could clearly see the Russian crew waving at us🤣. 2011 was a great shame when the MR4 was cancelled (just as it was about to enter service) because of costs, then we spent even more money on what the MR4 would have cost to buy the P-8 Poseidon (which uses the American probe refueling which no RAF Voyagers use).
I vividly remember the scenes as they were hurriedly broken up, presumably for fear something would happen to reverse the decision, which left us without ASW aircraft, which I consider criminal negligence, and thoroughly stupid considering how painful it is to learn how needed such things are when wars break out unexpectedly. (Wars are always unexpected, unless one starts them.)
That’s typical British gov for you. They waste money at every corner then rarely spend it where it is needed. Sadly that seems to the the same for the regional devolved governments as well.
@@dannyfeller7034 I'm not in favour of PR, but having both major parties would rather risk our chances against Russia than make an election issue of defence, so both have become accustomed to promising the electorate to spend more and more on the NHS and benefits, so the number of 'vulnerable' keeps growing.
This Man has a quiet voice ... why are Forces News playing inane music to drown out the words?
Stupidest decision was to cancel the nimrod, when the modernisation was well advanced. Some idiot claimed that the job could be done just as well by a C-130. Cancelled in 2010 - UK had about 46 Nimrods. The need has at last been realised and Poseidon will not meet full capability until 2024 and there are only nine of them.
I agree with you, what a stupid decision to cancel, I was there as a contractor at Woodford where they were being built. The look of shock when it was cancelled from all the staff was unbelievable. While the planes were being dismantled, all the wiring was stripped out of the airframe, the next day someone was trying to find the wiring harness for the radar, I asked him why and he said that they were going to try to fit it to C-130!!.
One of the leaders who looked after PR-5 said the MR4 was better than anything else for the next 20years. Even with all the spares, 5 of the planes could be operational by the end of the year and did not need spares for the life of the aircraft. Alot of the staff were saying that because it was better than what America had and yet again they could not copy it like the Harrier they pulled strings to shut it down.
What a sad end
I closed the site down, now it's a housing estate.
Down to Cameron & Osborn being knobheads 🤦
@@johnsabini2330 100% David Cameron the most IGNORANT PM in history.
It must have been a nerve wracking experience doing in air refueling with those hoses running through the cockpit the way the did. I remember when we fitted the probe and then constantly towed the Aircraft in and out of the hanger hiding it from satellite passes
Ahh...the 'kipper-fleet'. Lovely aircraft which defo played a vital role during 'Corporate', not least of all during the Black-Buck sorties.
How about a big thankyou to Chile???
Remember when Pinochet was arrested and Maggie said ‘Let him go, you don’t know what he did for our country’ - some of us knew what she meant
On Thursday, 20 May - The failure of Operation Plum Duff, compromised the Nimrod missions operating from Chile and left the fleet exposed.
let us not talk about the Nimrod MRA4...UK MODs greatest failure but also Boeing's greatest victory without even doing anything
The world's biggest fighter.....
I love the name Nimrod
The RAF maybe could have used the Nimrods as early warning of Argentine airstrikes?
I'm not sure if that would have worked.
Just one small problem…no where to fly from, refuel, or land… Nimrods don’t do Aircraft Carriers either…😂
@@stun9771 It was clearly explained that the Nimrods used were able to refuel so range was not an issue. As it happens they played a huge part in enabling the rendezvous of Victor tankers with Vulcan bombers AND the other Nimrods.
They did from Chile until the 20th May
@@sichere RAF Canberras that flew from Chile were doing covert ops. and photo reconnaissance. Some were in Chilean colours. We left the aircraft in Chile as payment. Aviation author Chris Chant has claimed that the Nimrod R1 also conducted electronic intelligence missions operating from Chile.
The use of air-to-air refueling allowed extremely long reconnaissance missions to be mounted, one example being a 19-hour 15-minute patrol conducted on 15 May 1982, which passed within 60 miles of the Argentine coast to confirm that Argentine surface vessels were not at sea. Another long-range flight was carried out by an MR2 on the night of 20/21 May, covering a total of 8,453 miles, the longest distance flight carried out during the Falklands War. In all, Nimrods flew 111 missions from Ascension in support of British operations during the Falklands War.
It sort of sounds like he thinks he didn't do a good job.
I really think the reason he was recalled was because as soon as the invasion started the Argentinians would dispatch fighters.
Just reading one hundred days by Sandy Woodward now
Let us know what the book is like. Read "The War at Sea" by then Brigadier Julian Thompson who was crucial on the ground during the Falklands Conflict 1982 and loved it.
@@trevorhart545 read enjoyed it, read loads of para etc stories about the land battle but not the sea element. Going to look up Julian Thompsons book now. Thanks
Not barbeque, barbeCue....
1:22 Where it says "the Mark 1 Nimrod had no air-to-air refuelling capability" what's the big boom sticking out of the front of the plane in the photo?
1st 😊😂
Good job. You deserve a like.
They had to go avk to their regular day job, challenging the USSR.
Cockroaches
SAD
that did not look like a MR version doing a/a refueling right towards the end !!!
It is
Sad to say that 99% of RAF support in the Falklands was useless apart from a few RAF pilots flying Harriers. See "Sea Harrier over the Falklands by Sqn Ldr (at the time) Sharkey Ward. All the Black Buck raids were inconsequential and one of them was totally inept. One raid dropped all its bombs (that missed the target) but they wouldnt have done any harm anyway. They were released not electronically armed so alls they were was 1,000 Ib dustbins. Millions of gallons of aviation fuel wasted and Vulcan crew members lives risked for nothing.
RAF GR Harriers did take part in the ground war.
@@GG-im1cb Someone needs to pull their head out of their arse. Several of the pilots on the FAA Squadrons were RAF pilots on exchange postings, including one of the first Air to Air kills of the conflict by Flight Lieutenant Tony Penfold. The first was by RN Lieutenant Paul Barton.
@@squaddie67 Some of those so-called "RAF" pilots started life as Fleet Air pilots then transferred to the RAF when the fixed wing carriers were scrapped.
The Black Bucc raids were Political and served a purpose.
The RAF were conducting AW and intelligence gathering from Chile that helped the Task force enormously, until the failure of Operation Plum Duff.
The worst thing about the BB raid was that a Harrier had to put itself in danger and overfly Stanley to photograph the damage where they could have just dropped one bomb.
Apparently one RAF pilot lost his nerve, refused to fly and was confined to quarters.
It was a team effort not just Sharkey Wards war and he was RN