Douglas Barrie/LONDON
BRITISH AEROSPACE IS offering to re-engine the Royal Air Force's fleet of Nimrod MR2s with the BMW Rolls-Royce BR710 turbofan in its bid to meet the UK Ministry of Defence's (MoD) £2 billion ($3.1 billion) replacement maritime-patrol-aircraft (RMPA) requirement.
The BR710s would replace the aircraft's aging four R-R Spey RB168s. Other power plants were considered, according to sources close to the RMPA requirement, including the Pratt & Whitney JT8D-200 and the R-R Tay (Flight International, 24-30 May).
The BAe bid, dubbed the Nimrod 2000, is for up to 25 aircraft based around a complete refurbishment of the RAF aircraft. BAe is competing against GEC-Marconi and Loral, both offering the Lockheed Martin P-3, and Dassault, proposing the Atlantic 3. The MoD is aiming to announce a decision before Parliament goes into recess in July 1996.
BAe opted for the BMW R-R power plant, rather than the JT8D or Tay, as it offered the best performance improvements. Fitting the engine requires considerable wing modification, as would be the case with the rival engines. The aircraft requires a new centre wing-box and inner wing-section design. Replacing the wing-root-buried Speys with the Anglo/German engine requires that the root-intake size be enlarged to provide the increased airflow needed and to accommodate the larger-diameter power plant.
Despite the aircraft's age, the UK manufacturer is understood to be confident that the airframe will easily last the 25 years, which have been specified by the MoD RMPA requirement. "Airframe corrosion is a nuisance, but it is not an issue," says one source.
Alongside the airframe improvements, BAe is proposing to revamp the aircraft's cockpit, avionics and mission system suites.
The company has teamed with Boeing for the mission systems, with the latter drawing on its work on the cancelled P-3 Update IV programme and its development for the Boeing 737 Surveiller.
Source: Flight International
