Posted on 01/24/2014 10:03:13 AM PST by maddog55
A new Boeing Co. (BA) surveillance aircraft deployed to Japan last month isn’t yet effective at hunting submarines or performing reconnaissance over large areas -- two of its main missions, the Pentagon’s weapons tester found.
Flaws in the $35 billion program included the plane’s radar performance, sensor integration and data transfer, Michael Gilmore, chief of the Pentagon testing office, wrote in his annual report on major weapons, which has yet to be released. He said the new P-8A Poseidon exhibited “all of the major deficiencies” identified in earlier exercises when subjected to more stressful realistic combat testing from September 2012 to March 2013.
“Many of these deficiencies” led Gilmore to determine that the P-8A “is not effective for the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance mission and is not effective for wide area anti-submarine search,” he said in a section of the report obtained by Bloomberg News. The Navy plans to conduct additional testing “to verify the correction of some deficiencies,” he wrote.
Gilmore’s conclusions suggest the initial aircraft in the program -- which packs a modified Boeing 737-800 with radar and sensors -- aren’t ready for deployment. Among its primary missions is tracking Chinese submarines. Six of the planes have been deployed to Japan supporting 7th Fleet maritime patrol operations at Naval Air Facility Atsugi as part of the U.S. strategic pivot to the Asia-Pacific region.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.com ...
Navy's Take on P-8: Vice Admiral Robert Thomas, commander of the 7th Fleet, said in a Jan. 10 press release that the aircraft “represents a significant improvement” over the older P-3 Orion from Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT), “providing the opportunity to detect, track and report on more targets than ever before.”
Yeah. A 737 is perfect for a low and slow long loiter time mission.
Deploy first — then verify that functional requirements have been achieved.
Brilliant.
“Low and slow”
I wonder how much more it costs to fly a 737 for a mission than a P-3 with it’s outboard engines idled?
” it would be a far better platform at 1/3d the cost. “
It’s not about money. Money is irrelevant. Capability is irrelevant. It’s about politics. Boeing has more pocket Senators than the completion.
Radar for a sub searcher? It needs sonar
but, wide range, deep monitoring is being done by satellites and sosus
Just upgrade the ARGO buoys.
Sure you weren't posting to the thread: 35 Hilarious Chinese Translation Fails?
It seems to meet every milestone to get funded it just doesn’t work.
A lot like the welfare program.. they don’t work either so just spend money.
Hopefully just teething issues.
Could be ‘playing possum’, except that under bo, he spills his guts on all our capabilities.
Who remembers the first competition to replace the P-3? Boeing proposed a 757-based platform, McDonnell Douglas proposed an MD-90-based platform, and Lockheed won the contract in 1988, with a stretched P-3, called the P-7.
Lockheed blew it, though, as they had made serious weight miscalculations. The program went over budget and the Navy cancelled it in 1990.
Sorry, meant competition. And this IS my native language. (Sigh.)
I read it the first time as ‘competition’, then saw it wasn’t, the brain made the connection, just a little hump bust.
Yeah, we’ll cut COLA for vets, saving $600 million a year, so the Pentagon can have its $35 Billion P-3 replacement...
From what I understand, sonar is not a good option unless you are under the surface of the water. If the sonar is on an airplane, that is not a good option.
It is amazing how stupid our > O-6 officers can be to parrot vendor provided PowerPoint presentations.
I was involved with some aspect of the low and slow testing...can’t really say more.
But if you reread the article it doesn’t seem to be the aircraft that’s failing miserably but rather the onboard systems. Although, I will concede the article is a little cryptic in that regard.
Yes, but propellers aren't pretty or cool.
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