Nimrod Replaced By Enhanced AWACS

Nimrod Replaced By Enhanced AWACS

August 11, 2011: Britain retired the last of their Nimrod maritime reconnaissance aircraft two years ago, and have since adapted their E-3D AWACS (air warning and control systems) radar aircraft to take up some of the slack. Britain modified the E-3 radar to also detect large ships at distances of up to 380 kilometers. Large aircraft can still be detected out to 500 kilometers. Smaller aircraft or ships need to be closer to be detected. In this respect, radar isnt much different than eyesight.

The Searchwater radar on the older Nimrod has about half the range of the E-3D radar, but can see in much greater detail. But given the lack of any replacement for the Nimrod, the E-3Ds ability to scan the ocean surface is better than nothing.

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htecm/articles/20110811.aspx

---

"The chief aim of all government is to preserve the freedom of the citizen. His control over his person, his property, his movements, his business, his desires should be restrained only so far as the public welfare imperatively demands. The world is in more danger of being governed too much than too little. It is the teaching of all history that liberty can only be preserved in small areas. Local self-government is, therefore, indispensable to liberty. A centralized and distant bureaucracy is the worst of all tyranny. Taxation can justly be levied for no purpose other than to provide revenue for the support of the government. To tax one person, class or section to provide revenue for the benefit of another is none the less robbery because done under the form of law and called taxation." John W. Davis, Democratic Presidential Candidate, 1924. Davis was one of the greatest trial and appellate lawyers in US history. He also served as the US Ambassador to the UK.