The aircraft on the right is an RAF Nimrod MRA4. The one below is an RAF Comet C.2. The Comet was the first commercial jet airliner (in 1949). It had a few problems – like it kept crashing due to metal fatique, which no-one knew about then.

Now if you look at the Nimrod, you’ll see its fuselage has a kind of blob stuck on underneath. If you ignore that, you’ll see that the Nimrod has a Comet inside it. Look at the tailplane – the shape is identical.

The wiki entry for Nimrod says “Development has taken longer than anticipated and the first of 12 MRA4s have not yet entered service. The contract was initially for the supply of 21 rebuilt Nimrods, but due to technical problems the project was halted. Early in the contract BAE discovered that none of the Nimrod airframes supplied by the RAF for refurbishing were to a common standard. This considerably complicated the refurbishment process.”

Now I know an RAF guy who told me why. The original Comets were built using wooden formers. With changes in humidity and temperature, wood changes in size. Consequently no 2 Comets were the same size and shape. So the new wings did not fit, and had to be bashed about to make them do so.

Now I’m not usually keen on an increased military budget. But I’m thinking the families of the aircrew still required to fly in these things will have a very unHappy Christmas.