The UK’s first new P-8A Poseidon Maritime Patrol Aircraft has landed in Scotland, closing a capability gap that emerged when Nimrod was scrapped in 2010.

The first P-8 for the UK, nicknamed the ‘Pride of Moray’, arrived at Kinloss Barracks in Scotland earlier today.

The first British P-8.

As we reported in 2018, when the first P-8A Poseidon arrives in the UK it will be ready to fly with a UK crew on day one thanks in part to a team of RAF personnel embedded with the US Navy through the Seedcorn programme.

The P-8 Poseidon, developed by Boeing, is designed to conduct anti-submarine warfare (ASW), anti-surface warfare (ASUW), and shipping interdiction, along with an electronic signals intelligence (ELINT) role. This involves carrying torpedoes, anti-ship missiles and other weapons.

Infographic of the P-8A Poseidon aircraft.

Poseidon contains up to 7 crew computer consoles in its cabin, has an electro-optical and infrared sensor turret, a maritime surveillance radar and signal intelligence system. Its radar is capable of detection, classification and identification of ships, small vessels and surfaced submarines.

It also has coastal surveillance capability meaning that the Poseidon can be used for search and rescue operations.

The second British P-8 taking flight in the US recently.

The UK has procured 9 of the aircraft.

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
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93 COMMENTS

  1. A positive welcome announcement ???? Good news. Seed corn was a smart move in an environment of short sighted stupidity with the MOD and their political masters .

    • Well, it’s a “capability” Robert – and we should be grateful for small mercies, but we could have had so much more.

      From BBC today
      https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-51356381

      Joe Kennedy, who flew on Nimrods for more than 30 years, said the decision to scrap the planes and not immediately replace them with new maritime patrol aircraft still felt shocking almost 10 years later.

      He said: “We all felt incredibly sad this fantastic aeroplane was coming to an end of its life.

      “In my personal opinion I think it was a great loss and I think a lot of us thought it inconceivable that we lose the maritime patrol capability with nothing to replace it.”

      The bungling of 2010 must be the absolute nadir in defence reviews! But then again, who knows what 2020 will bring ………………………. !

        • Only an idiot would try and build a nimrod out of old corroded comet’s, being hand built they had size variations which caused fitting out problems, no one wanted to fly them lol!

          • Yes, Peter, trying to match a 40 years old Nimrod fuselage to new wings and engines was a really daft idea, and incurred unnecessary cost and delay. Initially, MRA4 also suffered from stability issues. No one is disputing these facts. By those issues had been resolved by March 2010 – and aircraft handled over the MoD.
            And the finished aircraft was hardly unsafe, just to recap, it was displayed to tens of thousands of spectators at the Royal International Air Tattoo in both 2007 and 2009.

        • Agree Mark but dave12 comments above regarding the wings are the key to the fundamental problem echoing the Comet’s troubled beginning. In addition, ten years ago, the basic design was 60 years plus of age. It was perhaps a conversion that should not have been attempted. Camerons destruction of the airframes was a dramatic move that must have pained many involved in Nimrod but if it was deemed that it was not viable to continue then what was the alternative?

          • 2010 SDSR wasn’t the problem for Nimrod MRA.4. It just implemented a decision that was going to have to be taken eventually. No-one was going to sign off Nimrod for operations after Haddon Cave.
            The stupidity was not going for a full new build Nimrod or an A319/320 base aircraft in the first place. It removed any possibility of export sales and a wholly new airframe. It wasn’t just the wings that got replaced, it was huge amounts of the fuselage as well. It was about 80% new. Even if they’d have gone for a new build Nimrod the programme would have been delivered only marginally late and we’d have been sitting pretty with 18 MRA.4 that in some respects were more capable than P-8…

          • To be honest with regards to the MR4 upgrades for Nimrod, it would have worked out much cheaper and more successful if we had just built new Nimrods from scratch instead of trying to upgrade 60 year old airframes.

          • Hi Geoff. It is because I agree with the comments (good and bad) about Nimrod and at the same time feel that we have ended up at the right place with P-8 that leads me to the conclusion that Nimrod was good for it’s time but we were right to move on. Pity about the process it took to get there. Basing such an aircraft on a successful commercial aircraft now seems obvious. There is no need to reinvent that part of the wheel.

          • Nimrod was never good as the air frames were of different dimensions and corroded, it was like the elephant in the room in the aircraft world.Everyone involved thought it was a stupid project!

          • There is a spectacularly good thread over at Secret Projects Forum that details the real issues with the MRA.4 programme. It’s well worth a read. The wings are a complete myth by the sounds of it, and thats from people there. The issue was programme management and some, in retrospect, bad decisions and timing. This made the programme essentially massively overbudget and late, which then dropped it into the 2010 SDSR morass.
            Go over and have a read, it corrects lots of the myths out there.

          • I read earlier that a certain Mr Cameron is looking to be a future Secretary General of NATO – mmmm what could possibly go wrong ?.

  3. Seems odd that they didn’t include an IFR Probe (as was included in E3D buy) to make them able to utilise Voyager? As it is they’ll be reliant on boom equipped tankers to extend their limited Time on station!

    • The point of the purchase method – essentially piggy-backing USN lots, was to produce identical aircraft at economies of scale. I’m guessing that ANY deviation would have blown the logic of that procurement method out of the water. I wonder if they will be be retro-fitted in the future – absolutely makes sense.

      • It’s about time we fitted booms to the Voyagers. We already have the RC135s and C17s, now the P8s that all have inflight refuelling capabilities that just need a boom…….

          • I am sure this have read that it is on the RAF wish list, so don’t think that is a problem. Again, it is all to do with money.

          • Airtanker have offered to add booms….at a cost.

            But…the Airtanker contract doesn’t last forever, by the time they’d got it installed and tested the RAF would have had about 5 years of use of it, all at an enormous cost. Better to rely on others I’m afraid…

          • The reason we can’t AAR Helo’s is because of the AirTanker contract restricting their assets to all AAR, hence no AAR capability with our A400s. The sooner it’s reviewed the better!

          • No need for review.
            If Airtankers contract states that they do all AAR (and I doubt its that simply put) you simply task them for an AAR mission refuelling helicopters. When they don’t turn up or say they can’t you’ve got them on a breach and KPI’s with daily penalties swing into effect.
            They’ll soon change their tune then…

        • A word of caution. Look at the disaster that is the USAF tanker replacement the KC46. They have a boom but the all singing all dancing remote view system for the boom operator does not work. It is likely to take at least 4 years to fix.
          So the USAF now has 30 + tankers it cannot really use because the boom may hit and damage the refueling aircraft. There are some shocking videos around of boom strikes during trials when the boom operator gets it wrong.

          • That’s a design problem with an aircraft that many would argue wasn’t suitable in the first place. You really need a position for the boomer to be looking directly at the aircraft taking on fuel. I ‘ve been on a KC135 and the boomer has a pretty good view.

          • Difference is the A330 MRTT has been developed and deployed successfully (after a bit of a cock up at the start). Now in use elsewhere so a known quantity.

      • Good point and true Julian. The UK hopefully learned that lesson with the Phantom when major changes were needed for them to operate from the RN’s carriers and they ended up being the slowest, thirstiest and most expensive variant of their kind!

        • Not a pilot but I did read that there were some advantages the converted F4’s had over the US equivalents. Must check that up again.

          • HF – Just re-read the reasoning for substituting the GE J-79 for the RR Spey,a very interesting Chicken and Egg scenario there.

  4. I’m pretty sure that the Nimrod could shut down engines in which to increase loiter time. Does the P8 have similar capability?

    • Hi Farouk, No – it’s considerably short-legged in comparison.
      We sunk £4 Billon into a bespoke MPA solution (building on the success of MR2), then cancelled it – on the verge of its service introduction. Then sunk another £2B into an inferior aircraft!
      One of the myths surrounding MRA4 is that it never flew!
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvHRdXKruZc

      • If any of you are thinking,”He’s banging on about the Nimrod cancellation again”, can I just say that I’m still not over the TSR2 debacle – and that was back in 1965!
        On that basis, expect me to be posting about Nimrod until at least 2075!

        • Beautiful aircraft visited Cosford twice and seen it , in all its glory.
          Funny enough the last time I visited, i was in the hangers with the German glide bomb, this flight Lt in a jumpsuit saw me taking pictures and out of everybody there walked over to me and asked if he could help.
          I replied:” Yes. How many medals have you got?”
          He replied “none”
          I smiled and informed him I had 6.
          He said “Army?”
          I replied “Yes”
          He walked away

          • Not wanting to black cat but being Navy… I somehow ended up with 7… But I get the point.

            Working with the light blue brethren in my final draft was entertaining when medals where required as part of the uniform.

        • Haha Alan-still not over the TSR2. I’m a member of that club along with the Supersonic Harrier and cancelled Carriers of the class of 66!

        • I am sympathetic about the TSR2…..I was a kid when Dennis Healey cancelled TSR2 and opted for the F111 instead. We never acquired the F111 and the TSR2 frames were broken up leaving just a cockpit section for engineering training purposes. I have never really understood the glee with which governments’ order the destruction of tax-payers property!

          • Hello Herodotus. Yes, Harold Bloody Wilson and his motley crew savaged the British Aircraft industry then. We would have had a RAF order for TSR2 and an almost certain undertaking from the Aussies as well to buy same. Ironic that we went on to build our own swing wing albeit a less ambitious aircraft and s you know the Aussies bought the F111. When these magnificent fighting machines were slaughtered by Healey the only thing that kept me sane was the Lightening! I remember a photo of a full Squadron of the glorious beasts on the front page of the Rhodesia Herald. The Royal Rhodesians had Hunters on the front line and my Rhodesian pal was jealous as hell!

          • Fair comment HF. The man who said missiles would do the job and we wouldn’t need front line jets any more!!Join the discussion…

        • Yeep, just imagine a RAF with TSR2s, the Avro Arrow and Avro Vulcans. That would have been good, but politicains get in the way, I am still trying to work out what politicians are good for except screwing things up.

        • No doubt, Robert, it was a troubled programme – late and over-budget (although hardly unique in that respect). But at the time of cancellation, it was working ……. and being brought into service.
          Its cancellation has never been properly explained, and one suspects muddle and bungling by senior ministers. If needed, HF has supplied a great link – with evidence from people working on the project.

          • Alan-In view of this then I apologise and withdraw my earlier comments regarding Comet/Nimrod and her advanced years. We were both initially conceived in about the same time-1949!!

          • My guess on the reason it was cancelled is that we were still fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, it was all about the war in terror, which both New Labour and the Tories were looking to tailor the military for.

            Nimrod, as a maritime patrol plane, contributed nothing to either Iraq or Afghanistan campaigns; the former having no real navy worth the name and the latter being landlocked. It was over budget, late and as it didn’t benefit the War on Terror it was deemed unnecessary, and therefore cut.

          • Haddon Cave was the reason.
            There was zero understanding of risk or risk management in all three services.
            Nowadays.everything is risk managed and signed off as a known risk

          • You’re right, Gunbuster, it was the first aircraft to go through the new MMA body (formed after the MR2 2006 crash) – and MRA4 certification was still being signed-off at the time of SDSR 2010. Those troublesome old reused fuselages again!
            The three elderly Air Seeker (Rivet Joint) aircraft also had certification originally delayed by the MMA – although eventually signed-off.

      • The P-8A is the best MPA solution available now.

        This comparison is like comparing the SR-71 to the current crop of Intel aircraft like the Global Hawk, U-2S, ect. The Blackbird had capabilities nothing can touch today but is it good bang for the money today? No. Just because something has a few high end capabilities doesn’t mean it’s the right platform today. The Blackbird’s day has long since passed and so has the Nimrod’s.

        • Also forgot to mention the F-14 replaced by the Super Hornet. Did the Tomcat do some things better than the SH? Sure. But in the end it wasn’t worth all the money, maintenance, ect to keep the Cat flying so the USN went with the SH. Does the USN miss the range and top speed of the F-14, probably but like the Nimrod it’s time has passed.

        • Dan, Congratulations, that’s the first time I’ve ever seen the SR-71 Blackbird and the Nimrod used in the same sentence!
          But for a bungled cancellation Nimrod MRA4 would have protected our coastline during the last ten years – and with another 20 years service ahead of it …….But don’t take it from me, listen to the people who worked on the programme, and the RAF pilots who flew it.

          • I’m sure the MRA4 would have been a fantastic aircraft, but they should never have used the Nimrod airframe. With that wonderful thing called hindsight, maybe we could have developed our own European P8, but with a Airbus airframe instead of Boeing 737. But we can’t change the past. The P8 will offer a superb capability, and the vital growth, it will be a very different aircraft in 10 years time, to the one delivered today. And will be used for a much wider set of tasks then just traditional MPA, it will be a fully integrated ISTAR asset working with future UCAV’s, F35, Typhoon, E7 ect.

          • Hi Robert, the problem with say an A320 based MPA, would have been the old Spector of European bun fighting cooperation, coupled with small numbers, the cost would have gone through the roof and we would have ended up with something that looked remarkably like the P8, but at three times the price!

          • Evening Alan, the MR4 would have without doubt been a very good platform indeed, probably the best…

            Unfortunately, even taking the initial contact into account, 25 essentially rebuild and re-worked aircraft with virtually no possibility of exports or further domestic orders, was a questionable decision.

            A massive (Titanic shaped) flaw in the program management came early on when a suggestion of bringing in retired Woodford engineering staff on consultation regarding the rebuild was rejected outright.

            Had they actually taken the trouble to this, they would have discovered that each airframe was dimensionally unique!

            They learned this the hard way when they tried fitting the new center wing box to airframe No2, it didn’t fit, yep, the single most expensive airframe component wouldn’t fit!

            The program cost from this point started spiraling out of control, as airframes needed more work than anticipated and each wing center box had to be made to bespoke dimensions to fit the refurbished fuselage…

            The Labour government should have cancelled the program early on when these massive gaffs became apparent, they didn’t and in order to keep the cost under control they began reducing the order…

            Numbers dropped, 25, 21, 15, 12 and eventually just 9!

            The technical problems grew out of control and so did the bill…

            We ended up with nothing of course in the end, just scrap…

            It would have been a stunning performer however and it certainly showed huge promise, however as a bespoke system, we would now be facing another huge bill in the next few years as dated avionics would need upgrading, as all modern combat aircraft need.

            The P8 is not as good in many areas, but it is still very capable, a good example of smart procurement and leaves the option open for top up up orders and perhaps UK integrated weapons at some point.

            Did some mention TSR2, fascinating aircraft, I’ve digested just about every detail of that project, best don’t get me started on that one……!

      • Thanks Julian, its just I’ve been reading elsewhere that jet liners can take off and land with just the one engine and just wondered if the P8 could cruise on just the one engine.

        • They only do that in an emergency… if you lose an engine on takeoff after your committed you have to be able to go around and land. It takes time to start an engine. You don’t deliberately fly on only 1 if you have more…

  5. ‘The first P-8 for the UK, nicknamed the ‘Pride of Moray’,
    You wouldn’t say aircraft carrier R08 was nicknamed Queen Elizabeth.

  6. Hi folkes, yes great news. However, a poor move to scarp Nimrod before a replacement could be delivered. Still let’s go forward with positive stride. Great for all our security, including SNP sniping at the sidelines!

  7. Nimrod was cancelled for purely political reasons – selling cuts and ‘austerity’. The narrative was that it was socialist overspending that was responsible for the financial crisis in 07/08, not irresponsible practices in the ‘city’. Nimrod was sacrificed on the altar of ideology.

      • Nope – to emphasise the necessity of the austerity lie. Same reason the Harrier force was flogged off cheap to a delighted US Marines. I talked to some of the ehgineers who worked on the project. Aircraft were flying and ready to come into service, despite the lies that Fox parroted.

        • At the time of cancellation (October 2010), aircraft had been delivered (March 2010), and crews were being trained at Warton. I understand BAE had offered to support the fleet for £75M per annum (source PPRUNE), and haggling was ongoing between the MoD and its supplier.
          Hardly a “horrendous” cost in defence terms ………….

  8. Jeepers, the Daily Telegraph are reporting this story too. However, they say the P8 has a MAD. Why are the mainstream media so hopeless on defence topics?

  9. Now get Marshall or similar to integrate British kit and weapons and we’re sorted. Oh and buy at least 3 more or commit to a fleet of complimentary Tritons…

  10. Its good to see this capability return to the UK, we should never have got rid of it to start with.
    There are however from my point of view two areas of concern.
    1. Air to Air refueling, with the P-8, C-17, RC135 and the future A-7 requireing boom refueling we need to resolve the issue with our refueling fleet. Many contries have the A330 MRTT with a boom and drogue whilst the RAF version has only drouge. So either we need to upgrade half of the refueling fleet to the boom and drouge fit out or possible exchange 3-4 of the RAF aircraft for 3-4 from the EU defence pool.
    2. Have Boeing really fixed the technical problems with the 737s or have they done a work around. The 737s had a major technical problem a decade ago, ‘rudder hard over’ basically the rudder control rods would stick and push the rudder hard over to the right, they also had the secondery issue of rudder control rod reversal. This would mean as the pilot pushed the right pedal the rudder would go left or of you pushed left it would go right. This caused several fatal crashes, which is understandable, in the first situation the pilot can do nothing about it and in the second the pilot it the aircraft flips to the left will try and stomp on the right rudder control just making the issue worse as he won’t understand why the dammed plane keeps going left. I think it also happened on some 747s where the lower rudder also went hard over and would not move. Some might say that was ten years ago, true, but with the new situation with the 737 MAX I am having this gut feeling that quaility control from Boeing has slipped. It can’t be changed now, and the choice was made on cost and speed of implementation but I still wonder if it would not have been better to take the Airbus 330 and fit the electronics of the P-8, A-7 into them.

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