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| NAVAL AIR SYSTEMS COMMAND PATUXENT RIVER, Md. – The Navy has received
its first P-8A production representative operational test aircraft June
24. The new P-8A arrived at NAS Patuxent River and it will join three developmental test aircraft already undergoing integrated testing in preparation for initial operational test and evaluation of the P-8A Poseidon. The Navy entered into Low Rate Initial Production of the first six Poseidon aircraft in January 2011. These aircraft will be used to form the first operational P-8A squadron, which is scheduled for initial operational capability in 2013. |
Monday, June 27, 2011
First Operational Test P-8A Arrives at NAS Patuxent River
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i can tell you alot of people here in the NW was happy boeing got that contract, alot of people are keeping and getting jobs to get this out, i am glad boeing won the contract.
ReplyDeleteI was reading Grand Logistic's post where he made some points about the Nimrod being potentially the best UK aircraft for support in low threat environments like Afghanistan and that has me doing a re-think about the P-8.
ReplyDeleteIt would have been very interested to look at one inter-service platform to replace the Orion, the AWACS, assorted recon and elint roles and honestly a lot of the bomb truck work that B52s are doing now as well as long range maritime patrol. I suspect we would have wound up with a larger plane with some very interesting possibilities, though it would trample far too many service specific sacred cows to actually get built.
Even just thinking about p-8 derivatives can be an interesting exercise once the "maritime only" blinders come off.
well i think they are filling the gap with what they need now. the P3C while a venerable aircraft who has served amazingly for 50+ years is in urgent need of replacement, but we have AWACS, B52s and other things that are still doing the job well and dont have the concerns about operational readiness the P3 might have, so lets make sure we have good maritime patrol in place then we can look at expanding the aircraft. Boeing of course is launching its 787 which is a monster jet and a lengthened 747, they could be the next generation AWACS, bombing, etc.
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