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| Press Release Number: EPX200305064 | 06-May-03 |
Royal Air Force sends rare bird to Pax for testing |
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| By BRIAN SERAILE NAS Patuxent River Public Affairs PATUXENT RIVER NAVAL AIR STATION, MD-The Royal Air Force's most closely guarded reconnaissance aircraft completed a two-week visit here May 4. The Nimrod R1, one of only three such aircraft in existence, arrived here April 17. The purpose of the aircraft staging to Pax River was to conduct tests of a new automated electronic warfare collection system developed by Raytheon Systems of Falls Church, Va. This system, known as Project Extract, will replace older, manually operated systems that have been used to perform support for the Nimrod's primary mission of reconnaissance and electronic intelligence collection. Before arriving at Pax River, the Royal Air Force shipped approximately five tons of parts and support equipment for the aircraft. The advanced shipment was required due to the unique maintenance requirements of the Nimrod aircraft. "One of the unusual things about this project is that we don't have this type of aircraft on the base, so the RAF had to bring an entire support package with them," said Leslie Taylor, NAWCAD Rotary Wing Mission Systems electronics engineer. "We can supply the ground support equipment and the expertise to perform basic maintenance, but if Nimrod-type equipment needs repair they must have access to spare parts." The tests were conducted on the Atlantic Test Range and Offshore Warning Areas. Air Test and Evaluation Squadron 23 hosted the aircraft and provided basic maintenance support. NAWCAD's Atlantic Ranges & Facilities unit and Rotary Wing Mission Systems provided test-planning support, coordinated the airspace, and controlled the actual flight profiles during test. The Atlantic Test Range operates a variety of radar simulator and time/space/position information systems to aid in data collection and systems evaluation. "The test support facilities here at Patuxent River provide services you pretty much can't get anywhere else," Taylor said. "The Atlantic Ranges & Facilities has its own airspace, multiple emitter simulators, tracking radars and data collection and correlation capabilities at the Real-Time Avionics Workstation. These systems can provide the test conductors a near real-time assessment of the performance of the newly installed automated collection system." There are very few places in the world that can cover all aspects of the test, which allow Raytheon, the RAF and ATR to make time-critical decisions before the next flight. Because of the classified nature of the tests, RAF Squadron Leader Tim Carter could not be specific about the system that was tested or overall performance characteristics. "The significance is we have new equipment and the fact that we needed to test it," Carter said. "The facilities here at Pax River are ideal for supporting our test requirements and are not available in the U.K." Maritime Nimrods have been here before, but this is the first time a Nimrod R1 has visited Pax, Carter said. There are two versions of the Nimrod. The Nimrod R1 is distinguished from the maritime MR2 versions by the lack of the magnetic anomaly detector booms on their tails. "The Nimrod MR2 is a maritime reconnaissance aircraft and performs a mission similar to the U.S. Navy P-3C," Carter said. The Nimrod can loiter for long periods and its air-to-air refueling capability can extend its endurance even further. The Nimrod has a highly sophisticated and sensitive suite of systems used for reconnaissance and electronic intelligence-gathering. The plane is 117 feet 8 inches long and the wingspan is 115 feet. Each engine provides more than 12,000 pounds of thrust. The crew of the R1 Nimrod includes two pilots, a flight engineer, a navigator and a mission supervisor. The Nimrod flew six missions during its visit here and returned to Royal Air Force Waddington May 4. -USN- Photo by Brian Seraile The Nimrod is one of the Royal Air Force's most closely guarded reconnaissance aircraft. It arrived here April 17 and returned to Waddington, England, May 4. |
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