Shipbucket

Well, I know Lazer did a couple of Italian ones a while back.

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Now something else,about airplanes.In real Greece,Olympic Airlines use 6 De Havilland Comet 4B (2 were leased from BEA).In my scenario,all 6 aircrafts were purchased from OA.In 1968-1969 withdrawed from service-replaced by B707,but definetely had flight hours.What I can do with a Comet 4B;Could a simple but effective Maritime Patrol aircraft based to that airframe;An ELINT/COMINT/SIGINT variant;Also the engines could be changed with RR Spey to have some commonality with Buccaneer.

The RAF's Nimrod type aircraft are a maritime-patrol modification of the Comet. These airraft use the same wings structure and engines of the Comet with a modified body

Comet

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"Never fear to try on something new. Remember that the Titanic was built by professionals, and the Ark by an amateur"

Given the high amount of flight hours seen on civilian AC you're probably looking at a minimal conversion of some sort.

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I know about Nimrod.Airframe age was from 7-9 years old and the conversion would designed to require minimal changes to the frame of the aircraft,since the Nimrod itshelf was the most expensive Maritime Patrol Aircraft.

That was the original intention but at the end of the day the airframes had almost nothing in common - and disastrously so, may I add. The now-canceled MRA 4 had new wings, new engines (and engine inlets) and probably, I don't know, 60% of the outer fuselage skin structure still retained from the original aircraft they were converted from and that was it. And it got expensive quick.

Lockheed used the Electra L-188 as a design basis but all P-3 frames were new-builds that started and left the assembly line as P-3s. And wound up retaining more of the original structure, too.

Yes,the L-188 and the Orion.The difference between them in frame was that the Orion was shorter (about 2m if I remember).The Orion had the radar in the nose and the P-2 in a belly dome.What configuration is more plausible for the Comet?That depends of the volume of radar is important,the APS-80 or the AVS-21D (that of Nimrod).
Another "civilian" aircraft converted to MPA role was the CP-107 Argus (or CL-44 Yukon).How did this can help?

Look at the Nimrod. And note how huge it's radome is and its double-lobbed fuselage. Remember, even though the Comet was a pure jet it's the older aircraft (it's first flight was something like 1947 or so) and so it held onto a lot of older engineering principles, including a smaller-diameter fuselage (back when it was assumed passenger travel would be relatively infrequent still).

Also, a belly dome always contributes more drag. The reason why the P-2 had it was because it had an observer in the nose - the radar was a later addition because this is basically a WWII bomber.
Well keep in mind that the canceled AEW Nimrod variant had (huge) nose and tail radomes.
...how did this can help?

The CP-107 was a specialized variant of the CL-44 ultimately. It did have a glass nose because it was felt that having a visual observer was important (with modern technology that is simply not true unless a SAR role is highly important, and even then you can just have a bubble window off to the side). It also had piston engines instead of turboprops because they wanted a more fuel-efficient plane (this was more or less sound, especially at the low altitudes MPAs fly at). But either way is unlikely to persist anymore - piston engines are prohibitive in maintenance manhours except for a very small plane and I already covered glass noses.

For SAR role RHN had HU-16 Albatros (also Hellenic Coastguard had some).Range of the Comet 4B varies from 4025km (Wikipedia),4630km (hellenic magagine Ptisi & Diastima;Flight & Space,January 1995,which had an article about the De Havilland Comet) and 5260km according to British sites.Obviously,last number seem to be range with max fuel and first number range with max palyload-which was about 11tn or 101 passengers.The reason I refer the CP-107 is the electronics type and layout and it did have a large dome just below nose (although it was quite longer from Comet).

Comet 4B range seems enough to cover Aegean and East Meditterranean even with Avons (although Nimrod can offer the modification to Speys which were more efficient than Avons).

Comet 4 had a 3-2 seats configuration,so its fuselage seem to have about the same fuselage diameter with Fokker 100-which also has about the same length,Comet was ~60cm longer-.

Note that I have an article about the Nimrod MR4 (hellenic defense magazines write almost everything) and the Nimrod R1 (this latter magazine dates from 1984).

The question however remains:Can a Comet 4B converted to an MPA retaining the airframe (perhaps based on first plans of Nimrod).But this aircraft sould be better than the ASW Albatros,isn't it?

They probably could, but I doubt it would be worth it unless you're willing to settle for some sort of podded radar. The airframes are old and have few hours left in them. By the time you've dsigned the conversion kit, gutted the civilian innards, overhauled/replaced the engines, modified the airframe and installed the milspec gear it would have been cheaper to buy a new plane.

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