THE RAF is being forced to borrow American spy planes and paint roundels on them to replace its fleet of Nimrod R1 signals intelligence aircraft.

The crews of the US Rivet Joint spy planes masquerading as RAF aircraft will not even be totally British with US personnel expected to take control on some missions.

The move, forced by a Ministry of Defence (MoD) cash crisis that rules out the money for a replacement aircraft for the Nimrod R1, has provoked outrage among RAF air crew who say it will mean a major loss of capability.

The MoD said last week a final decision had not yet been taken. But Air Marshal Sir Glenn Torpy, chief of the air staff, briefed air crew during a visit to the Middle-East just before Christmas.

“He told the R1 crew that he had brought them an early Christmas present,” one source said. But when he described the plan to use the RC135 Rivet Joint spy planes the response was blunt.

It was so unenthusiastic and blunt that several RAF officers were subsequently hauled up before their commander for a dressing-down, the source said.

“I am incandescent with rage that we are even considering ditching what is a world-class, ‘gold standard’, war-winning capability in the name of economy and the dubious claimed benefits of greater interoperability with the USAF,” one insider said.

The Nimrod R1 aircraft, among the most secret aircraft in the world, were due to be flown on to 2025 but the loss of one of its sister aircraft, the Nimrod MR2 over Afghanistan in 2006 has forced a rethink.

Both aircraft types suffer from the same fuel leaks and are fitted with the same hot-air pipes that caused the Afghanistan incident in which 14 servicemen died.

Restrictions on the use of hot-air pipes following the inquiry into their deaths has sent temperatures inside the already cramped Nimrod R1s soaring above 50 degrees Celsius.

Initially, RAF chiefs were to replace the Nimrod R1 with a different aircraft which could be fitted with a brand new top-secret signals intercept system called Helix, which is currently under development.

But that would cost more than £600m altogether whereas the cost of sharing the US Air Force’s Rivet Joint aircraft would be much cheaper in the short term.

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