ASR 381: Nimrod Projects

[Hood]

A question I meant to ask some time ago but only just around to.

In the back of 'Stuck on the Drawing Board' by Richard Payne in the Project Lists section it mentions the HS1011 VG supersonic airliner designed as a a 'no boom' type. It claims this is "A commercial derivitive of the design submitted for the Maritime Reconnaissance contract based on the de Havilland's DH 130 proposal." Looking under de Havilland reveals nothing more. So I took a look in Tony Buttler's 'British Secret Projects: Jet Bombers Since 1949'. His project list under HS and DH reveals nothing and the Chapter dealing with A/S aircraft makes no reference to either the DH 130 nor the HS design to OR.350.

Was it therefore a serious project or a competitor to a different requirement?

 

[TinWing]

Tony Buttler has yet to publish a book on civilian projects - and the DH130/HS1011 was primarily a civilian airliner project that was put forward for a military requirement. It is also worth remembering that his books are largely supplemental to the earlier "Project Cancelled."

 

[zebedee]

Hello...

There was an article in the december 1973 edition of AIR Enthusiast on the Nimrod that you might find interesting. It featured 3 view drawings of a number of the competitor projects, The Avro 776, 784, Hs800 and the 1011. I've attached a scan of the 1011, along with some illustrations i did a while back of the HS800 as it might have appeared in squadron service...

Zeb

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

I read that article a few weeks ago.. Cool.

 

[jackehammond]

Folks,

There was also a paper project in the 1960s to replace the Shackleton (eventually won by the Nimrod) which looked an awful lot like the B-1A for ASW missions. Anyone have any photos or drawings of that project?

Jack E. Hammond

 

[starviking]

Folks,

There was also a paper project in the 1960s to replace the Shackleton (eventually won by the Nimrod) which looked an awful lot like the B-1A for ASW missions. Anyone have any photos or drawings of that project?

Jack E. Hammond

I think that was one of the HSA projects. I think the late 80's edition of 'Project Cancelled' has info on it.

Starviking

 

[Jemiba]

According to Derek Wood "Project Cancelled" it would have been a derivative of the
HS Type 1011 supersonic VG airliner. The drawing unfortunately only showed the civil
version, so I once added at least a weapons bay and reduced the number of windows .. :
Even if transit times to the patrol area would have been much reduced, I
think, it was quite a strange idea, to modify a supersonic aircraft for ASW ... ???

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

From Air International, Dec 1974

 

[Apophenia]

That Avro 774 design reminds me a bit of the Canadair CL-28. Would the 774 design be Brittania based?

The fuselage, empennage, and undercarriage bear little resemblance but the wing planform looks very similar to the Brittania/Yukon/Argus line.

 

[jackehammond]

According to Derek Wood "Project Cancelled" it would have been a derivative of the
HS Type 1011 supersonic VG airliner. The drawing unfortunately only showed the civil
version, so I once added at least a weapons bay and reduced the number of windows .. :
Even if transit times to the patrol area would have been much reduced, I
think, it was quite a strange idea, to modify a supersonic aircraft for ASW ... ???

Dear Member,

Thanks. That was it. I remember the unique locations of the engines. Again thanks.

Jack E. Hammond

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Even if transit times to the patrol area would have been much reduced, I
think, it was quite a strange idea, to modify a supersonic aircraft for ASW ... ???

You have to remember that Shackleton was an extremely slow piston engine aircraft; it could take it many hours to get to its assigned patrol location. Before the ASR 381, the more demanding AST 357 requirements had set a minimum transit speed of 450 knots; it is likely that the VG design dates from this period.

Avro's 776 was considered the best solution.

 

[smurf]

I was looking for airliners, but...
The original colour photo is about 1/3 of a column in Air Enthusiast No 68 1997, and is a picture of models displayed at the Avro Heritage Centre.
Tucked away at the back is

"what is thought to be the Avro 775 twin-Tyne plus RR.168 booster Shackleton replacement."

Sorry for the quality, but on the original this aircraft is only about 2cm long.
Has anyone any further details of this, please, and any data on the Avro 774 that Overscan posted?

 

[McColm]

Hi Guys,
I've got a copy of a Modern Combat Aircraft 24 BAe Nimrod by John Chartres first published in 1986 by Ian Allan Ltd, on page 12 he says:
In addition to the Maritime Comet concept, design studies considered included the French twin-turboprop Breguet Atlantic, the Lockheed p3 Orion, a BAC '10-11' (a version of the 1-111 airliner with VC-10 wings), a 'shape' called the Avro 776, the Trident airliner, a four-engined version of the 748, and fast and slow versions of the Belfast freighter, studies of turbofan and turboprop mixes and thought to variable geometry as an answer to the high dash speed and low loiter speed requirement.

Unfortunately there are no sketches or drawings of such proposals in the book.

 

[Kokoro]

What did the Nimrod design offer that the others didnt?

Might it have something to do with its airframe being an existing design as well as the four engines but can operate on two trick?

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Primarily cheapness I believe.

 

[PMN1]

Not sure where I got this from but...

Air Staff target 357 laid down in June 1963 requested feasibility studies for aircraft capable of transiting at 450kts and searching at 180kts for eight hours at 1,000 nautical miles form base while carrying 18,620lb of stores.

BAC offered a VC-10 with RB177-22 Medway engines, the Maritime Reconnaissance Vanguard, a variant of the Canadair CL-44 and a Mach 2 variable geometry aircraft with reheated RB177-22 engines. Hawker Siddeley, who submitted their studies in October 1963 proposed the Avro 776 with Medways, Trident MR1 and MR2, the AW681 MR1 and MR2, Avro 784 and a variable geometry aircraft based on APG/1011F. Their preferred solution was still the Avro 776, which it felt, could meet the specification completely. The Trident was nearly as good, but had restricted scanner size capability, as did the AW681, the latter also suffered comparatively in having a maximum transit speed of only 420kts allied to high search speed (220 reducing to 185kts). The Avro 784, which was rather similar in appearance to the rival Vanguard, had a wing span of 145ft and a length of 106ft 9”. Powered by four RR Tynes it could carry the stores and operational equipment demanded and meet the overall performance requirements, except transit speed. The same general performance and capabilities applied to the Vanguard and CL-44 derivatives, which virtually eliminated them, while both VG designs were soon out of the running as too complicated and definitely too expensive.

At this stage it was rather belatedly realised that the full AST 357 requirements could not be met by 1968, the latest deadline for the start of the Shackleton replacement. Reluctantly the Ministry accepted that the new aircraft would have to go into service in an ‘interim’ condition if the very tight delivery dates were to be attainable, but insisted on it having as a minimum the operational capability of the current Shackleton with plenty of potential ‘stretch’. The time scale eliminated all proposals except those based on existing designs (shades of the Orion – and the Shackleton) and in the autumn of 1963 the BAC VC-10 and Trident were assessed on their low level capabilities by a mixed team of test pilots and experienced maritime aircrew. When it was suggested that the RAF would only accept a four-engines aircraft, Hawker Siddeley worked overtime to re-vamp their tentative MR Comet proposal of 1961, and the Mk4C variant joined the VC-10 and Trident as an option.

The VC-10 was judged unnecessarily large and expensive and it became a matter of choice between the two Hawker Siddeley projects. The company re-examined their Trident MR1 and MR2 proposals and between March and June 1964 put forward a series of HS 800 variants based on the aircraft, in parallel with the HS 801 MR Comet. Meanwhile the Ministry was formulating ASR 381 and the die was cast, for when issued by OR23 (RAF) it was seen to detail an interim maritime reconnaissance aircraft to replace the Shackleton MR2 based firmly on the Comet. A series of HS 801 brochures was produced by Hawker Siddeley as the project design team refined their ideas, culminating in a Type Specification on December 1964. This formed the basis of the Ministry’s Specification MR254D&P issued in April 1965 for the aircraft, which received the formal ‘instruction to proceed’ in June and subsequently became the Nimrod.

A replacement for the MR Shackleton had been found at last, albeit supposedly only an interim solution. In practice, of course, it has become the solution – and a very successful one at that.

 

[McColm]

One of the reasons the Nimrod was selected over the other proposals was that the RAF were using Comet 2 and Comet 4s in their Transport Command and Reconnaissance Units.
A maritime profile assessment sortie had flown in mid-1964 in a Comet 3 from Hatfield.

 

[Grey Havoc]

Regarding the HS.1101, any idea what engines were schemed for it? My google-fu seems to be weak today.

 

[Abraham Gubler]

, The Avro 776, 784, Hs800 and the 1011. I've attached a scan of the 1011, along with some illustrations i did a while back of the HS800 as it might have appeared in squadron service...

Sorry for the necropost.


But does anyone know why the HS.800 (Trident MPA) has offset nose landing gear? I can only surmise that the lack of depth between the radome and the bomb bay means the gear has to fold down sideways. But is there another reason? Crew entry door? Optical sight? Etc?

 

[robunos]

The offset nosewheel was a carry-over from the original Trident airliner design, this from Wiki :-

"From the outset, the D.H.121 was planned to employ avionics then considered very advanced for the era. ... the period's avionics required them to be housed in a large hold beneath the flightdeck; its size dictated a distinctive nose undercarriage design: offset by 2 ft (61 cm) to the port side and retracting sideways to stow across the D.H.121's longitudinal axis."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawker_Siddeley_Trident

And from century-of-flight,net :-

"The Trident has a very distinctive offset front landing gear. The reason it was designed this way is if the gear is retracted sideways it occupied significantly less cargo hold space."
http://www.century-of-flight.net/Aviation%20history/coming%20of%20age/Hawker-Siddeley%20Trident.htm

cheers,
Robin.

 

[Abraham Gubler]

The offset nosewheel was a carry-over from the original Trident airliner design, this from Wiki :-

Thanks. I had no idea it was standard on the airliner Trident.

 

[alertken]

Industrial politics, this time, worked to the benefit of UK Aero.

PM+SecDef visited DC, 7/12/64. LBJ offered everything/anything at fixed prices, on credit. Not, as the conspiracy fans have it, to do down fine UK products, but to address UK's poverty to keep UK East of Suez and ideally into Indo-China. Orion, obviously, would have been welcome. The only reason DOR specified a turbofan - then unique in MR - was dash to Spitzbergen, then shut down to loiter on 2. The calculation was that would reduce the fleet needed to sustain 2 up there on patrol, 24/7: so, dearer Unit cost, cheaper fleet cost... provided R&D was minimal, by adaptation of a going concern. VC10, I hear you cry.

But to kill HS681, as was inevitable once C-130K was offered, and P.1154(RAF), which was inevitable once F-4D was offered, would have been taken by the Boards of HSAL's owners as evidence that UK military was history. Politicians felt that maybe it was, but not just yet. So an MR Trident or Comet. 4 is clearly better than 3 over the ocean, and RAF knew the type well. Simples. HS+RR offered some semblance of cost/time predictability, so deal done and attention turned to terms with DoD for so much else.

 

[Odysseus1980]

Info about Avro 776

Avro 776

Projet d'avion de patrouille maritime triréacteur britannique du début des années 1960.

aviationsmilitaires.net

 

[hesham]

From Avro Archive.

 

[Foo Fighter]

Info about Avro 776

Avro 776

Projet d'avion de patrouille maritime triréacteur britannique du début des années 1960.

aviationsmilitaires.net

English version :-

The Avro 776 is a three-engine maritime patrol aircraft project, with swept wings in the low position, a "T" tail and retractable tricycle landing gear.

In the early 1960s, the Royal Navy was still looking for a ground-based maritime patrol aircraft capable of replacing the Shackleton and published its Air Staff Requirement 381 on June 4, 1964.

After the failure of its Avro 745 during the previous competition, which did not result in any firm orders for aircraft, Avro studied several concepts, including the Avro 774 powered by four turboprops and the Avro 775 equipped with two turboprops and a turbojet engine. The British manufacturer also wanted to offer a true three-engine aircraft and decided to adapt a Hawker-Siddeley Trident airframe under the name Avro 776.

This new aircraft took on some of the characteristics of the Avro 774 and 775, including the nose, possibly partially glazed, of the former. The wings, which are swept up and down, are equipped with two attachment points, each of which can carry up to four Skybolt long-range missiles. Although similar in shape to the Trident, their wingspan and surface area are larger. Propulsion is provided by three Rolls Royce RB-177-2 Medway turbojet engines installed at the rear of the fuselage. Two of these engines are located in nacelles fixed on each side and the third is installed at the back of the airframe. The air intake of the latter is located above the fuselage, at the base of the vertical stabilizer, and its nozzle is located in the tail cone, as on the Avro 775. From the latter, it also takes the "T" tail in arrow.

The Hawker Siddeley Nimrod four-engine aircraft, derived from the de Havilland Comet, was finally chosen. The Avro 776 was never built.


Text by Jericho, with his kind permission.
Characteristics

Maximum takeoff weight: 81,400 kg (179,456 lbs)
Wingspan: 41.4 m (135,827 ft)
Length: 39.4 m (129,265 ft)

Performance

Cruise speed: 852 km/h (529 mph, 460 kts)
Operating ceiling: 10,668 m (35,000 ft)
Maximum thrust to dry weight ratio at takeoff: 0.37

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)