The first ex-UK Royal Air Force British Aerospace Nimrod MR2 maritime patrol and surveillance aircraft to be acquired by a museum touched down in Elvington on 13 April, after completing its last ever flight.
More than 2,000 visitors and aviation enthusiasts lined the fence at the Yorkshire Air Museum to witness XV250’s arrival from RAF Kinloss in Scotland.
Its crew performed two flypasts and a touch-and-go landing before taxying in past a Handley Page Victor K2 tanker.
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Both images © Yorkshire Air Museum |
The museum says its Nimrod will be maintained in a state of “semi retirement”, and should participate in regular “Thunder Days” staged at the former RAF base. These already involve its Victor and a former RAF Blackburn Buccaneer strike aircraft, which are powered up and perform fast taxi runs for the public.
It says it will also exhibit the Nimrod as a lasting memorial to the 14 UK service personnel who died when MR2 XV230 crashed in southern Afghanistan in September 2006 after a mid-air explosion.
The RAF retired its last Nimrod MR2s from operational use on 31 March. Its replacement fleet of nine BAE Systems Nimrod MRA4s should be fully operational around 2013.
Source: FlightGlobal.com
