Free Republic

On Nov. 20, 2023, a U.S. Navy P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft 169561 YD-561, belonging to the VP-4 “Skinny Dragons” based at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, Washington, ended in water after overshooting the runway during landing at Marine Corps Air Station Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii. The crew, safely evacuated the aircraft after the mishap without immediate injuries....

According to The Times, a US marine surveillance P-8 Poseidon aircraft, was tracking Moskva in the hours before it was attacked before supplying its location to the Ukrainian military. The Boeing-made aircraft is based upon the Boeing 737-800 jet - which is widely used by airlines such as Ryanair. However, instead of passengers, the Poseidon is packed with state-of-the-art surveillance equipment which can track surface vessels and submarines at ranges of more than 100 miles. .. the P-8 left US Naval Air Station Sigonella in Sicily on April 13, hours before the attack. Before reaching the Black Sea coastline, the...

The Royal Australian Air Force is on contract to acquire 12 P-8A Poseidons for delivery through March 2020. (Photo: Mike Yeo) The U.S. has cleared the Boeing P-8A Poseidon for sale to New Zealand, as that country moves toward the next phase of acquiring a new maritime patrol aircraft to replace its Lockheed Martin P-3 Orions. Several manufacturers are eyeing the requirement. The Defense Security and Cooperation Agency (DSCA) notified Congress on April 28 that the State Department has approved the possible foreign military sale of four Boeing 737-based P-8As and associated support to New Zealand for approximately $1.46 billion....

NEW DELHI: Adding more teeth to the Navy’s surveillance capabilities, India on Wednesday signed a deal worth over $1 billion with American defence and aerospace major Boeing for procuring four additional Poseidon-8I long-range maritime surveillance and anti-submarine warfare aircraft. The US has emerged as the biggest supplier of military hardware to India and with Wednesday's agreement, the total value of defence deals signed with the US in the last decade comes to around $15 billion. According to defence sources, the contract is a follow-on order to the eight P-81 planes worth $2.1 billion bought by India in a direct deal...

Adding range and smart guidance to existing munitions, via a kit, is the backbone of America’s “smart weapon” revolution. Laser guided bombs, GPS guided JDAMs, and Wind Corrected Munitions Dispensers are all bolt-on kits that drastically increase the capability of existing air-dropped weapons. Now, the Mark 54 light-weight torpedo is getting this same treatment via the High Altitude Anti-Submarine Warfare Weapon Capability (HAAWC for short). The HAAWC concept is relatively straightforward. The folding-wing kit contains a flight control computer and GPS, and attaches via a set of collars to a Mark 54 torpedo. Once launched, HAAWC's wings spring out and...

The U.S. government has approved sale of up to nine P-8 maritime patrol and strike aircraft to the United Kingdom, a new export sale for the popular Boeing (NYSE: BA) military jet. The British deal will be worth up to $3.2 billion, according to Reuters. Boeing also exports the so-called "sub killers" to Australia and India. There's a market for the jets in countries with large coastlines. The approval, while not unexpected, is a boost to the Puget Sound region. Boeing assembles the 737-based aircraft at its Renton site on a production line separate from the commercial 737s. Boeing then...

The UK is set to announce plans to obtain nine Boeing P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft, as well as extend the service life of the Royal Air Force’s Eurofighter Typhoon fighters. The P-8 acquisition and Typhoon life extenstion will be part of a £178 billion ($270 billion) investment that will be made in defence equipment and support over the next ten years, says a statement from the prime minister’s office. Prime Minister David Cameron will outline the plans when he unveils the Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) in the House of Commons later today. With the last of the...

David Cameron and George Osborne will be persuaded to part with the cash to buy a fleet of jets to hunt Vladimir Putin's nuclear submarines, which have regularly been patrolling the coast of Britain in recent months. Often the Russian underwater vessels have only been discovered after colliding with private boats and now Government ministers are eager to plug the gap in defences with aircraft to track them. Around a dozen top of the range planes will be bought for the RAF over the next two years. These are likely to include the US developed Boeing Poseidon P8, designed for...

OKINAWA, Japan—Swooping down to 500 feet over the western Pacific, Cmdr. Bill Pennington pilots his U.S. Navy P-8 Poseidon surveillance aircraft toward an unidentified vessel off southern Japan. In the back of the plane, a heavily modified Boeing 737, the crew homes in on the vessel using a barrage of surveillance equipment, including radar, GPS and infrared cameras. Further down the fuselage stand rows of tube-shaped sonar buoys that the crew can catapult into the sea and that float for up to eight hours as they track objects underwater. This is a dummy run: Today’s target is a Singaporean container...

Australia has confirmed that it will acquire eight Boeing P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft, with the first examples to be delivered in 2017. The aircraft will be fully operational by 2021, says prime minister Tony Abbott in a statement. His statement pegs the deal’s value at A$4 billion ($3.6 billion). “These state-of-the-art aircraft will dramatically boost Australia’s ability to monitor its maritime approaches and patrol over 2.5 million square kilometres of our marine jurisdiction – an area equating to nearly 4 per cent of the world’s oceans,” says Abbott. Canberra has also approved an option for an additional four examples....

Report: Navy's P-8 Aircraft Plagued with Problems; Deployment in Doubt (c) asa663@verizon.net Received from a former P-3 crewmate. It would appear that there are some serious development problems with the new P-8 aircraft. Here is some input from a friend, USN Retired, who is working for a defense contractor who has a contract with both P-3 and P-8 development. He is working with the P3 but has a LOT of input from the P-8 part of the company. Three cases in point about the waste of our defense establishment. Sonobouy launching: The P-8 can’t launch sonobouys at any high speed....

P8-Is: Indian Navy's eye in the sky The Boeing P8-I long-range maritime reconnaissance aircraft (LRMRA) which the Indian Navy got lat month is the most sophisticated weapon system in its inventory yet. The aircraft, which is now being used for training by Indian naval personnel in coordination with the US Navy in the US, has the latest radars, electronic warfare systems, and weapons to kill hostile submarines, several of which lurk underwater in the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal around the Indian coast. Built on the body of a civilian Boeing 737-800 jetliner with the wings of a 737-900,...

THE UK government faces claims it is failing to meet its international search and rescue obligations after official figures revealed a dramatic fall in the number of missions undertaken by Britain since the scrapping of Nimrod reconnaissance aircraft. Answers to written questions in the House of Commons reveal a sudden decline in Britain's involvement in international missions following the abandonment of Nimrod, leading the SNP to accuse the UK government of "recklessly" running down Britain's capabilities. The UK received an average of six requests a year for search and rescue help from neighbouring states before the withdrawal of the sea-patrol...

Poseidon on the prowl P-8A crew successfully hunts undersea targets Soon to begin joining the fleet’s anti-submarine warfare (ASW) force is the Navy’s newest multi-mission platform, the P-8A Poseidon, which recently flew four successful operational missions Feb. 20-24 against submarines that did their best to elude the aircraft during a single-plane detachment to NAS Jacksonville. ASW is an enabling mission for the Navy to combat challenges posed by new generations of very quiet nuclear and non-nuclear submarines. VX-1 Test Pilot Cmdr. John Verniest is the P-8A operational test director and NATOPS program manager at NAS Patuxent River, Md. “During our...

Indian Navy to induct 24 Boeing P8-I Maritime Reconnaissance Aircraft By Gulshan Luthra Published: December 2011 New Delhi. The Indian Navy will acquire 12 more Boeing P8-I Long Range Maritime Reconnaissance (LRMR) aircraft in addition to the 12 already ordered or being ordered. Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral Nirmal Verma told India Strategic in an interview that the Navy was satisfied with the progress of the first eight Indian P8-Is being built by Boeing under a 2009 order and that the second order for four more aircraft was being processed to be placed within the current fiscal ending March...

Indian Navy's poseidon takes off Ajai Shukla / New Delhi September 29, 2011, 23:40 IST Boeing demonstrates the multi-mission maritime aircraft; to start work now for 2013 delivery. The Indian Navy, which aims to be the premier blue water force in the Indian Ocean region, needs to keep a year-round watch over some two million sq km of open sea, the country’s Exclusive Economic Zone. In war, the area becomes larger. The aircraft that will perform this function in the decades to come, the P8I Poseidon multi-mission maritime aircraft (MMA), has made its first flight at a Boeing facility in...

The U.S. Navy announced today the award of a $1.6 billion contract to Boeing for P-8A Poseidon aircraft Low-Rate Initial Production (LRIP) of six aircraft. This first LRIP contract also includes spares, logistics and training devices. Production of the first LRIP aircraft will begin this summer at Boeing’s Renton, Wash. facility. “In 2004, the U.S. Navy and the Boeing Company made a commitment to deliver the next generation maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft to support a 2013 Initial Operational Capability (IOC),” said Capt. Mike Moran, PMA 290 Program Manager. “This contract and these aircraft keep that commitment on track.” Three...

The structural integrity of new P-8A Poseidon patrol aircraft has been confirmed in a series of tests by U.S. company Boeing. Boeing said the tests began in May and were completed last month. "The structure performed as we expected throughout testing, allowing us to efficiently expand the P-8A's flight-test envelope," said Chuck Dabundo, Boeing vice president and P-8 program manager. "Our static test plan was successful thanks to the combined efforts of Boeing's design, analysis and test teams and our U.S. Navy customer."

The Boeing P-8I team began fabricating the first part for the Indian navy's first long-range maritime reconnaissance and anti-submarine warfare aircraft on Dec. 6 in Wichita. The P-8I, based on the Boeing Next-Generation 737 commercial airplane, is a variant of the P-8A Poseidon that Boeing is developing for the U.S. Navy. Employees at Spirit AeroSystems -- where all Boeing Next-Generation 737 fuselages, nacelles and pylons are designed and built -- cut the P-8I's first part, a bonded aluminum panel that later will be installed on the fuselage's upper lobe to support an antenna. The panel and other fuselage components will...

India to buy modern warships, maritime planes at $4.5 billion English.news.cn MUMBAI, Oct. 6 (Xinhua) -- The Indian Navy will acquire four modern amphibious ships and four P-8I long range maritime patrol planes totally worth about 4.5 billion U.S. dollars, local media reported on Wednesday. The acquisitions of the warships and planes were approved by the Defense Acquisition Council headed by Defense Minister A.K. Antony on Tuesday evening, reported the Press Trust of India, citing an official of the Defense Ministry. The four amphibious warships will be made in India through license from a foreign country according to a technological...