The requirement to provide a replacement for the Nimrod MR2 was agreed and an initial data gathering phase began in November 1992.

Procurement responsibility was then passed to the Procurement Executive (now DPA). A Request for Information (RFI) was issued to 17 potential prime contractors who had registered an interest, and analysis of the responses allowed a competitive procurement strategy to be pursued for a replacement system.

A competitive tendering phase was initiated in January 1995 with the issue of the Invitation To Tender (ITT) to British Aerospace (now BAE SYSTEMS), Loral (now Lockheed), Lockheed Martin, and Dassault.

Proposals were submitted in July 1995 and there followed a detailed phase of assessment and clarification. Following Ministerial approval, British Aerospace was selected as the prime contractor in July 1996 to supply a complete package of 21 mission-equipped Nimrod 2000 aircraft, together with a training system and initial logistic support.

In 2001 the number of aircraft required was reduced to 18 in view of the assessed increase in capability and availability of the MRA4 over the MR2.

PROGRAMME DETAILS:

COMMERCIAL DETAILS:

COMPARISONS:

New Nimrod MRA4 in comparison with Nimrod MR2 is:

• 30% heavier
• carries 30% more fuel
• is 95% brand new
• has twice the patrol endurance

Nimrod MRA4 has 5.4 million lines of computer code.  This is:

• 3 times as complex as a B2 bomber
• 4 times as complex as a Eurofighter
• 20 times as complex as a Tornado GR4

CONTRACT HISTORY

1. A fixed-price contract was awarded to British Aerospace (now renamed BAE SYSTEMS) in December 1996, which placed full responsibility on the prime contractor for the design, development, trials, production, training and initial support for the whole system, including the airframe, engine, mission and flight avionics.

2. The contractual arrangements include liquidated damages, payments linked to the technical achievement of clearly defined milestones, a major operational performance and acceptance procedure together with detailed Intellectual Property Rights arrangements, and warranty, reliability and maintainability requirements.

3. In late 1998 it became evident that early technical and resource shortfalls threatened to delay the programme.  A detailed investigation was undertaken and a revised programme produced.  These technical and resourcing difficulties led to a re-baselining of the programme and a revised in-service date (ISD) is the target of March 2005.

4. The Nimrod MRA4 was identified as one of the Smart Procurement Initiative's pilot Integrated Project Teams (IPTs) in November 1998 - led by Air Commodore Barry Thornton, who was succeeded by Mr David King in January 2001 as IPT Leader.

5. A further change to the contract was agreed in 2001/02. Including a two-stage capability demonstration prior to ISD.  It was then recognised that the ISD might prove to be late 2005.

6. In December 2001, there was a successful demonstration of internal "power-on".

7.  By the end of 2002, it was clear that a combination of factors arising from the overlap of development and production activities were leading to further scheduling difficulties. In response to this, agreement was reached in February 2003 between BAE SYSTEMS and MoD to revise the programme. The aim is to reduce the risks to development by delaying production work, while the design of the aircraft is proven during the flight trials programme. Once an acceptable level of demonstrated performance has been achieved, the series production of the remaining 15 aircraft will recommence. This structuring of the programme will result in a four year delay to the in-service date to 2009. However, this delay provides the option of considering an enhancement to the aircraft capability to meet the defence requirements of the 21st century. An assessment study to this end will be started in 2003.

8. Development and build progress is illustrated at 'Making an MRA4'

INITIAL SPECIFICATIONS

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