jump to navigation

UK to scrap £4.1 billion new spy planes 27, January 2011

Posted by thegulfblog.com in UK.
Tags: , , ,
add a comment

As a part of the UK Government’s cost cutting, £4.1 billion worth of brand new spy planes are to be destroyed and sold for scrap.

The Nimrod MRA4 reconnaissance aircraft were designed to patrol the Atlantic searching for submarines. However, one expert notes that the electronics in the planes [once again, I note that these are literally brand new plane] are

already out of date. You wouldn’t put them in last year’s Playstation

Nice.

The Ministry of Defence says that it will save £2 billion in operation costs by axing the Nimrods. It would not be cost effective, they note, to mothball the planes as not only would this cost a fortune but they would be yet further out of date when they returned.

Couldn’t we sell them, I hear you ask. Nope.

the most expensive aircraft ever made for the RAF [the Nimrod] has almost no commercial value.

Great.

So scrap metal it is.

As much as I blamed Cameron for this seemingly absurd decision, it actually appears to be the right thing to do. What we need to do now, however, is find out which genius at the MoD ordered these planes and shoot him.

Are there any nuts and bolts from 100,000lb (45,000kg) of hardware that can be salvaged, re-used, or sold on?

…the BBC reporter asks finally.

“Not a great deal, I’m afraid…there’s nothing there of value bar scrap aluminium.”