UK Confirms 9 Boeing P-8's to be purchased

[scimitar]

In addition Waddington is undergoing a massive upgrade - The runway is being improved, strengthened and lengthened, hangars are being refurbished (including an add on for tall tails to the old 51 sdn hangar) and other works. Waddington is hardly busy so why would all this work be done for existing levels of operations?

Just because a base, barracks or port is upgraded it doesn't mean that some politician can't change the plans either later that day, week, month or year.

Using phoon's logic or lack thereof then Waddo is going to be perfect for the army. Maybe they'll move the reds from Scampton then the A15 can be straightened out and returned to the way it was when those pesky Romans built it.

Millions were spent on Kinloss in preparation for MRA4. Money that's not been wasted because the army is not allowed to dig it up meaning that when HMG decides to get the P8 they have crews from seed corn and a base that is ready to take them.

Cammy

[Thunder]

when HMG decides to get the P8 they have crews from seed corn and a base that is ready to take them.
Cammy

More or less, the only thing needed to be done would be to outfit a couple of hangars for type specific maintenance, update the relatively new ops building(2005) for type and possibly refurb the MRA4 sim building to accommodate a P8 sim if they feel they needed one.

What spare hangarage does Waddington have, do they have the fuel storage capacity, do they have the armament storage capacity, do they have messing/accommodation facilities to cope with an extra 600+ personnel plus accompanying families. Bare in mind that the USAF are more than likely going to be using Waddington for their own RC135 European ops once Mildenhall closes, which will mean even less room.

Yes it's unprecedented in recent times(I can't think of any in the last 40 years)that a former RAF station has reopened as such after being closed, but in reality there isn't much choice, and why are the MoD spending money on keeping Kinloss in a near perfect state?

[onemac]

I've changed ny mind - I think they will go to Waddo

Al

[Trenchard]

Al, they swept the runway at Cottesmore this week so don't make any decisions just yet

[welshandy]

My 17 year old did this mock up on his pc.

Image derived from the Nimrod styling's so will look slightly different to current large aircraft being used by the RAF.


P-8A Royal Air Force Mockup by James Wassall is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: ... uadron.jpg

[Dunk]

My 17 year old did this mock up on his pc.

Image derived from the Nimrod styling's so will look slightly different to current large aircraft being used by the RAF.


P-8A Royal Air Force Mockup by James Wassall is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: ... uadron.jpg

I like it, but can't see them painting them hemp!

[KINROTATE]

Call me old fashioned, but if we are thinking gloss (quite on trend recently), then there is a shining example sat on an airfield not too far from Coventry. After all if we can paint AirSeeker 'bling' then why not a 737?

[POL]

I like it, but can't see them painting them hemp!

Nor I Dunk, I'd imagine they'll come in the colour Boeing paint them in - the Indian ones are the same, as an example.

[onemac]

Al, they swept the runway at Cottesmore this week so don't make any decisions just yet

They swept the runway at Lossie last week. Does this mean it's closing?

Al

[welshandy]

I like it, but can't see them painting them hemp!

Nor I Dunk, I'd imagine they'll come in the colour Boeing paint them in - the Indian ones are the same, as an example.

It is the Boeing colour. The photo was of a US Navy example with their markings removed & RAF Nimrod style added. It's the Sun shining on the airframe makes it look hemp.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_P-8_Poseidon (photo top right)

[TonyO]

Politically, re-opening Kinloss would give the Conservative party some much needed kudos north of the border, and it was certainly make some sense in terms of the issues mentioned, hangarage, weapons holding facilities etc. But at the same time, its not impossible to add these things to an RAF station south of the border either, especially when it is MoD policy to reduce the number of bases, and locate more aircraft at each location, i.e. Valley, Brize Norton, Lossiemouth.

Personally, Waddington makes most sense as it is now the ISTAR hub, and these aircraft won't just be fulfilling the MPA role, I suspect we could see the P-8s replacing the Sentinels in the overland radar reconnaissance mission too.

[romeo bravo]

Al, they swept the runway at Cottesmore this week so don't make any decisions just yet

Did they? What day; didn't see anything. Sure it wasn't the wind as it was a bit breezy a couple of days.

[Trenchard]

They did indeed, you must've missed it

[onemac]

Did they? What day; didn't see anything. Sure it wasn't the wind as it was a bit breezy a couple of days.

Wednesday I think - the same day that 'Alpha' flew

Al

[Trenchard]

Think you're right Al, mid morning I believe

[C24]

Are you sure that it wasn't just so that the local council could convert it into a cycle track? I still think that RAF Wittering would make more sense even if it would mean spending money.
I assume that tanking from NATO a/c would be part of the role, so anywhere in the UK would suffice as a base. My origin idea of RNAS Culdrose is my favourite guess. The Norwegians are already covering the northern area and I am uncertain what the French offer.
We shall sea.

[Malcolm]

Are you sure that it wasn't just so that the local council could convert it into a cycle track? I still think that RAF Wittering would make more sense even if it would mean spending money.
I assume that tanking from NATO a/c would be part of the role, so anywhere in the UK would suffice as a base. My origin idea of RNAS Culdrose is my favourite guess. The Norwegians are already covering the northern area and I am uncertain what the French offer.
We shall sea.

Culdrose's longest runway is only 6000' long. The other 2 are less than 3500' long. I don't know the figures for P8, but I doubt a fully fuelled and tooled up P8 would be able to use a runway that short.

Yeovilton is 7500', St Mawgan is 9000', Brize and Fairford are 10000' and Boscombe is 10500'. All of these would be more suitable if they wanted to base P-8 in the south west - which they won't.

[Topol-M]

Machrihanish

[EGDR]

Machrihanish

Can't see it happening, where would the Aurora go?

[POL]

It's already at Boscombe, Kyle. I saw it there myself last night around midnight.