Nimrod R1 XV249 Official Unveiling @ RAF Cosford

[Leebee0]

Hi all

Today saw the official handover of the logbook for Nimrod R1 XV249 from RAF hands to the RAF Museum at Cosford.

This will be info and pic heavy as i go through a little history for the airframe and the interesting story of getting XV249 to Cosford. Hope you find this interesting

XV249 was assembled at Woodford as a Hawker Siddeley HS.801 Nimrod MR.MK1 and was one of 46 delivered to the RAF. She came from the first batch ordered XV226 - XV263 in Jan 1966.
Being at the end of the batch XV249 was first flown on 22nd Dec 1970 and was delivered to RAF Kinloss on 2nd FEB 1971.
She flew various missions between 1971 - 1985 including the famous Cod wars in Iceland in 1976.
In 1985 she was converted to MK.2 standard involving fitting new avionics and equipment suite Shackleton-era ASV21D radar with the EMI searchwater system. The crew was also increased from 11 to 12.
She continued in this guise until 7 sept 1992 when she was withdrawn from service and placed into storage at RAF Kinloss.
On the 16th May 1995 Nimrod R1 XW666 ditched into the Moray Firth following a starter motor explosion which pierced the fuel tanks causing a major in flight fire.
Thankfully all seven crew escaped but XW666 was a right off.
XV249 was found to be a suitable replacement and joined 51 SQN at RAF Waddington 51 SQN's new base on 19 Dec 1996. Nimrod R1's had replaced Signals Intelligence Unit in May 1974 replacing their Comet R. MK2 and Canberra aircraft.This brought the SQN back up to strength with three Nimrod R1 aircraft. Being first flown as a fully equipped R. MK 1 11 April 1997.
By 2011 following withdrawal of the Nimrod MR.2s and the scrapping of the Nimrod MRA.4 both in 2010 only RAF Waddington-based XV249 and XW664 remained as the last two flying Nimrods of any variant. Sister aircraft XW665 had been grounded in Oct 2010 and broken up at Waddington in summer 2011 and the forward fuselage ended up in a German Museum.
On 23rd May 2011 XV249 returned to Waddington after operations in Libya and was replaced by XW664 for the final months operations.
XV249 withdrawn from normal service for the second and final time on 9 June 2011.

The final flight for XV249 took place on 29th July 2011 when she was flown from RAF Waddington to Kemble for dismantling for the road trip to RAF Cosford.

So here are the pics to go with this post running from some of the final flights at RAF Waddington up to todays RAF Handover of the logbook at RAF Museum Cosford.

Some of the Final Flights captured at RAF Waddington







Fuselage Delivery 11 March 2012







Wings delivered 17 March 2012 (This almost never happened!)









Just a few onboard





So to todays handover 28 Sept 2012 blessed with great weather here on the West side of the UK made for a very good day all in all

Nimrod Talk by Air Chief Marshal Sir Brian Burridge







So to the official handover of the aircraft logbook from Air Marshal Sir Kevin Leeson to Peter Dye RAF Museum Director General









So to finish a few general shots of XV249 in her new home



















Thanks for looking

Lee.

[Jigsaw]

Thoroughly enjoyed seeing that thread Thanks for taking the time to post all of that mate

[Lucas1860]

Nice post.

Jim.

[Robdsn]

Great story and nice shots..!

Time for another visit sometime soon.

Robdsn

[Mayfly]

Thanks Lee it's good to see and I'm pleased she being taken care of. I have a couple of observations tho'

Didn't 249 t/o off from Waddington for the final flight in June 2011? - I was there to see it. My phots are dated 28th June 11- Was that not the last flight then did she go up Lossie?



I don't think she could have done as your photos of the t/o don't show the nose art of the squadron goose that she sported for the last few months.


I don't mean to question you but I'm confused. [doesn't take much!!!]

Edit even more confused now - I found my old thread
http://www.iconicaircraft.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=67&t=5028&p=185427&hilit=nimrod+last+flight#p185427

but looks like I dated the last take off as 2010 instead of 2011 - they are dated 2011 in my photo folder on my PC, but I see Minty had said there were rumours she was going up to Lossie - so where is her nose art? you can see in on the lorry!!!

Please tell me I'm not losing my marbles!!!

[Leebee0]

Lol sorry Pam your spot on I had put it in wrong as Kinloss when she did indeed leave from Waddington on her final flight.
The pictures at the top of my post are not actually of the final landing at Kemble which was 29th july 2011 but of XV249 at Waddington sometime before the end of operations. The pics were supplied to me by the RAF Museum and I realised after looking at them more closely they were not taken at Kemble.

Now Pam according to the RAF Museums data 28 June 2011 was the formal retirement ceremony of the Nimrod R1 at RAF Waddington. XV249 making the farewell flypast over the airfield at 11am and the official out of service date being 30 June 2011. Both aircraft XV249 and XW664 were on static display at Waddington Airshow 2011.





So Pam your marbles are quite safe

Lee

[Ipso]

Thanks for that Lee, interesting stuff.

[Mayfly]

lol thanks Lee. yes they were both static because I remember it being asked why couldn't have deferred the final date and them fly out of the airshow for the last flight.

[Leebee0]

Yes now that would have been really good

Lee.

[Hydealfred]

Superb informative post Lee - thanks very much.

[Blue_2]

Nice to see her back in one piece.