Calum

Looks like an airshow load. Nice work Bruce BTW

Very nice , like the chipping you've achieved on the wings and spinner

Those rear 3/4 views show the issue in the C/D kit nicely. I never really got it until I saw the comparison.

I don't deny politics and poor project management played a role in it's demise . But your argument that that was the only reason doesn't hold much water. Their were major issues (as mentioned above) with the integration of new wings to the airframe that also resulted in massive cost blow outs. They should cut their losses long before they did IMHO and jumped in the P-8 earlier. That could have saved a ton of money .along with not losing a fixed wing ASW capability for the period of time . (PS Truro Model Builder Nice dig with the Seasprite.... But the story there is a little different (notwithstanding the project management) Reliability of 4 engines vs 2 is a bit of myth when it comes to modern engines. They are incredibly reliable, hence modern airliners are large twins . Not sure 4 engines means more loiter time - more fuel bur more likely. As commonality with the earlier Nimrods , didn't MR4 have new engines and new wings? It was being sold as a new so there would be a lot of "new training required regardless ... plus it was taking so long to get into service that all the old Nimrod guys would be retired: And most of the avionics would be all new so that argument falls down even more . The P-8 has a lot of 737 systems that are well known to the aerospace community as a whole. I'd argue that's a huge advantage in terms of maintenance and support rather than a trying to look after 8-12 orphans And your last sentence makes no sense in relation to the P-8... it can do that as well. And it can attack land targetsl. When you look the USN's plans for weapons integration you can see it's going to even more capable than Nimrod, with it's low number of frames, could ever hope to be. One area were Nimrod does win hands down though is looks... It does look cool way cooler than the P-8 IMHO the major issue people in the UK have with the P-8 is that it's "Not Invented here "

Yeah all of that is true. Japan would certainly get the full meal deal but India definitely doesn't .

Really? Why couldn't they get it into service then? Perhaps because it was neither more capable, tried or tested?

The thing is you just buy the same configuration (within reason) as what everyone else is buying... This keeps costs down initially and if you maintain the same configuration as close as possible though life costs will stay lower than if you go it alone.

The trick is to not want to many changes (or for the operators to not think they are that different that they need something 'special".. that is the challenge in my experience) . As you must be aware uniqueness in equipment is bad (expensive)

Lovely work

Nice work

That Japanese machine would be much more expensive . At least the P-8 has a reasonable number of platforms in service and I assume the UK will maintain the aircraft at close to the same configuration as the USN (and other operators) aircraft which will also be less expensive in the long run.

Nice work Brian. Well photographed as well.

But sensible

There are no old P-8A's. The P-8A is the current production version. NZ ihas ordered 4 P-8A's . Work is underway on their new facilities at the moment

I'd rather pay a few $$ extra for cartogragh printed decals than the old rubbish Airfix decals (or the even new Eduard ones which I've had issues with). That Airfix use Cartograph printed decals is a big plus IMHO