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  • perdix said:

    One last comment on the defense review. It occurs to me that many here don't realise exactly how disastrous the Nimrod MRA4 was.

    The essential idea was to keep the old fuselage (heavily refurbished) and replace the wings.

    The new wings famously didn't fit. This was laughed off as part and parcel of using a 1950s plane - fits where it touches. But this touched on (ha) the fact that the original Comets were in fact badly built by De Havilands and a poor design. Many of the early crashes weren't due to metal fatigue, but simple poor design.

    Anyway, the other thing the new wings had was an increased sweep. This moved the centre of lift backwards. So the MRA4 would tend to dive unless corrected... So BAe installed a massive trim tab on the tail. In effect a permanent tip-the-nose-up.

    The only slight problem with that is that it meant that the fuselage of the MRA4 would be permanently under a bending strain in flight - together with vibration from the trim tab.

    The MOD air safety people discovered that BAe hadn't done proper fatigue calculations, or indeed proper stability calculations on the modified aircraft. The answer to those sums, when done was pretty horrifying. To add to the fun, the fuel system which caused an earlier Nimrod to explode in mid air was unchanged....

    The air safety people came to the conclusion that the MRA4 was not just unsafe, but that no practical redesign would make it so.

    I don't know why we just didn't start a new plane design from scratch.

    We can build bespoke supercarriers but not aircraft?
    It can take many years to design, test and then put an aircraft into production. Buying the Boeings means we can have capability within a short time.

    I agree. I'm querying why we didn't try and design a new plane in the early 1990s rather than try and upgrade the original 1950s design.

    Which essentially became more or less a new plane - just with an old fuselage - anyway.
  • DairDair Posts: 6,108

    Scott_P said:

    THE SNP had to bail out the Yes campaign to the tune of £825,000 at the end of the independence referendum, it has emerged.

    The party transferred the huge block of funding to Yes Scotland Ltd in three tranches straddling September 18, according to newly released Electoral Commission records.

    The files show the SNP donated an initial £275,000 just eight days before the vote.

    The party then donated another £100,000 on November 7 and a further £450,000 ten days later, when Yes Scotland was settling its invoices.

    Without the cash, Yes Scotland, which also included the Scottish Greens and Scottish Socialists, could not have paid its bills, insiders admit.

    Yes Scotland and the SNP previously insisted the campaign was "self-financing".
    http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/13217892.SNP_spent___825k_bailing_out_Yes_Scotland_after_indyref/
    This is of course all lies and many, of a particular persuasion, will of course believe that it is.

    It's almost certainly true.

    And absolutely irrelevant.

    It's very hard to see how this is even a story worth reporting.
  • Dair said:

    GeoffM said:

    Dair said:

    kle4 said:

    Dair said:


    They have never been offered such a system

    AV is a form of FPTP, it is neither proportional nor fair.

    At no election in history has the Liberal manifesto been : -

    "We will implement a proportional form of voting"

    and nothing else.

    If there is ANYTHING else in their manifesto, you cannot make your claim.

    Er, what? So now people offering the policy doesn't count if it includes other stuff too? How is any party to make the offer to the people other than as part of a package of policy offers it is presenting?

    People have been presented with parties offering PR. They have chosen, unfortunately, to consider that the negatives of the other things on offer outweighs any benefit PR might bring (or just outright disagree that it offers benefit). Honestly, I disagree with the public on this one, but you seem outright furious with the public, and scrambling to find a way to blame it on others by pretending people have never been given the option before.

    But as much as I like a good rant about PR, it's an early morning for me, so a pleasant evening to all.
    95% of Scotland voted for PR in Westminster elections.
    No they didn't.
    Under FPTP 95% of Scotland voted for PR.

    You can't have it both ways. It happened.
    It did but why would that matter? Scotland is just a region of the UK, no more than that. Should we have PR for Merseyside but FPTP in Surrey? You chose to be a part of the UK and that means you need a majority of the UK not a majority of Scotland.
  • ReggieCideReggieCide Posts: 4,312
    watford30 said:

    @SamCoatesTimes 17s17 seconds ago
    YouGov: 57 per cent of Labour members think Mr Corbyn should take the party into the next election, against 28 per cent of the public.


    @SamCoatesTimes 1m1 minute ago
    Fewer than one in five Labour members and supporters think Mr Corbyn should stand down now compared to three in five members of the public.

    Labour are heading for a split. Between the MPs and everyone else in the party.
    The split is between MPs and the screamers. The WWC surely can't fancy Corbyn or his ilk. What about the unions position?
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,624
    watford30 said:

    One last comment on the defense review. It occurs to me that many here don't realise exactly how disastrous the Nimrod MRA4 was.

    The essential idea was to keep the old fuselage (heavily refurbished) and replace the wings.

    The new wings famously didn't fit. This was laughed off as part and parcel of using a 1950s plane - fits where it touches. But this touched on (ha) the fact that the original Comets were in fact badly built by De Havilands and a poor design. Many of the early crashes weren't due to metal fatigue, but simple poor design.

    Anyway, the other thing the new wings had was an increased sweep. This moved the centre of lift backwards. So the MRA4 would tend to dive unless corrected... So BAe installed a massive trim tab on the tail. In effect a permanent tip-the-nose-up.

    The only slight problem with that is that it meant that the fuselage of the MRA4 would be permanently under a bending strain in flight - together with vibration from the trim tab.

    The MOD air safety people discovered that BAe hadn't done proper fatigue calculations, or indeed proper stability calculations on the modified aircraft. The answer to those sums, when done was pretty horrifying. To add to the fun, the fuel system which caused an earlier Nimrod to explode in mid air was unchanged....

    The air safety people came to the conclusion that the MRA4 was not just unsafe, but that no practical redesign would make it so.

    I don't know why we just didn't start a new plane design from scratch.

    We can build bespoke supercarriers but not aircraft?
    Why bother, when we can buy a proven and working design off the shelf? In addition there is the possibility of diverting some P8's intended for the US military to the UK, to speed up delivery of the first few operational aircraft.

    Always plumping for 'Home Grown' is normally how we got into such a mess over the procurement of equipment in the past. Time to move on.
    In fact, the P-8 was such an obvious choice that the MOD setup Project Seedcorn immediately after the cancellation of the MRA4. RAF crews flying USN P-8s.

    In fact one crew has just "won" a large scale ASW exercise.
  • GeoffMGeoffM Posts: 6,071
    Dair said:

    GeoffM said:

    Dair said:

    kle4 said:

    Dair said:


    They have never been offered such a system

    AV is a form of FPTP, it is neither proportional nor fair.

    At no election in history has the Liberal manifesto been : -

    "We will implement a proportional form of voting"

    and nothing else.

    If there is ANYTHING else in their manifesto, you cannot make your claim.

    Er, what? So now people offering the policy doesn't count if it includes other stuff too? How is any party to make the offer to the people other than as part of a package of policy offers it is presenting?

    People have been presented with parties offering PR. They have chosen, unfortunately, to consider that the negatives of the other things on offer outweighs any benefit PR might bring (or just outright disagree that it offers benefit). Honestly, I disagree with the public on this one, but you seem outright furious with the public, and scrambling to find a way to blame it on others by pretending people have never been given the option before.

    But as much as I like a good rant about PR, it's an early morning for me, so a pleasant evening to all.
    95% of Scotland voted for PR in Westminster elections.
    No they didn't.
    Under FPTP 95% of Scotland voted for PR.

    You can't have it both ways. It happened.
    No it didn't.
  • Dair said:

    Also not true. In Australia AV leads to an even more two party choice than FPTP. 145/150 seats were won by the first two parties in 2013 and the third party won 1 seat. Oops.

    Cannot be bothered with worrying about most of your drool but this one takees the biscuit.

    Under FPTP, Scotland has 57/59 seats won by the first two parties. England has 557/565.

    Australia 97%
    Scotland 97%
    England 99%

    It's hardly surprising that AV makes such little difference BECAUSE IT IS NOT PROPORTIONAL.
    Stop dividing the UK into regions. You're not dividing Australia into its States are you?

    There was one Westminster election covering the UK not four elections.
  • Arron Banks' Leave.EU referendum campaign launches formal bid to merge with rival Vote Leave

    Exclusive The two campaigns – Leave.EU and Vote Leave – have been compared to the "Judean People’s Front" and the "People’s Front of Judea" from the Monty Python film 'Life of Brian'

    http://bit.ly/1N4SKIn

    They need to go after the patriotic Labour vote IMHO.
  • New Thread New Thread

  • ReggieCideReggieCide Posts: 4,312

    A few questions

    1) Where the fuck was the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party? He should have been there come what may.

    Too busy writing to the plod demanding they re-re-re-investigate more paedo claims?
    Quite... but he should have been there. Watson is a political coward, and here it is writ LARGE.
    I would suggest it was a considered decision: nothing to do with cowardice.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,624

    perdix said:

    One last comment on the defense review. It occurs to me that many here don't realise exactly how disastrous the Nimrod MRA4 was.

    The essential idea was to keep the old fuselage (heavily refurbished) and replace the wings.

    The new wings famously didn't fit. This was laughed off as part and parcel of using a 1950s plane - fits where it touches. But this touched on (ha) the fact that the original Comets were in fact badly built by De Havilands and a poor design. Many of the early crashes weren't due to metal fatigue, but simple poor design.

    Anyway, the other thing the new wings had was an increased sweep. This moved the centre of lift backwards. So the MRA4 would tend to dive unless corrected... So BAe installed a massive trim tab on the tail. In effect a permanent tip-the-nose-up.

    The only slight problem with that is that it meant that the fuselage of the MRA4 would be permanently under a bending strain in flight - together with vibration from the trim tab.

    The MOD air safety people discovered that BAe hadn't done proper fatigue calculations, or indeed proper stability calculations on the modified aircraft. The answer to those sums, when done was pretty horrifying. To add to the fun, the fuel system which caused an earlier Nimrod to explode in mid air was unchanged....

    The air safety people came to the conclusion that the MRA4 was not just unsafe, but that no practical redesign would make it so.

    I don't know why we just didn't start a new plane design from scratch.

    We can build bespoke supercarriers but not aircraft?
    It can take many years to design, test and then put an aircraft into production. Buying the Boeings means we can have capability within a short time.

    I agree. I'm querying why we didn't try and design a new plane in the early 1990s rather than try and upgrade the original 1950s design.

    Which essentially became more or less a new plane - just with an old fuselage - anyway.
    Because of the vital belief at the MOD (cultivated by BAe) that only their special ultra strange design met the unique goals that they had themselves invented.

    The history of military procurement in this country is littered with this kind of comedy - come up with a unique requirement and then act surprised when it turns out ignoring reality isn't a good idea.

    Strangely, the original Trident decision was hated by many in the MOD and industry - because it involved simply buying missiles off the shelf, they didn't have anything to screw up. Lockheed got upset, because they had promised the American navy a price cut, if they (the USN) bought more. The USN pointed out that that under the terms of the offer, the British buy counted as well. So the price of their missiles went down as well as ours.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 18,232



    I don't know why we just didn't start a new plane design from scratch.

    We can build bespoke supercarriers but not aircraft?

    I get a bit ranty about BAE but let's put that aside for a moment. The two Queen Elizabeth class carriers are magnificent achievements: extremely well fabricated and assembled, with office-block sized bits built all around GB and assembled to millimetre tolerances. But there are only two of them, so the first one was effectively a prototype and the second a slightly-less-experimental prototype. These small batch sizes impose an organisational cost that you can't amortise thru long production runs. Then you add on inevitable confusion over design ("We don't need catapults" "We do need catapults!" "Ooops") as requirements change. So you get cost and time overruns.

    So yes, we *can* build bespoke supercarriers, but what you get at the end is inevitably underwhelming.
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