The U.S. Navy received its 100th P-8A aircraft from Boeing as the global fleet, which also includes the Indian Navy and Royal Air Force, approaches 300,000 flight hours of hunting submarines and providing aerial reconnaissance capabilities around the world.

“We’re honored by the Navy’s faith and confidence in our employees and the P-8 system,” said Stu Voboril, vice president and program manager.

“Our focus has been, and will be, on delivering the world’s best maritime patrol aircraft, bar none.”

The P-8 is a long-range multi-mission maritime patrol aircraft capable of broad-area, maritime and coastal operations. A military derivative of the Boeing 737 Next-Generation aircraft.

Boeing say that this is the 94th mission-capable airplane to enter the U.S. Navy fleet, with six additional jets used as Engineering Manufacturing Development test aircraft. The 100th fully-operational delivery is scheduled for later this year.

Boeing has also delivered 12 jets to the Royal Australian Air Force, two to the Royal Air Force and eight P-8Is to the Indian Navy. Multiple U.S. Navy squadrons have deployed with the P-8A Poseidon, and the Indian Navy and Royal Australian Air Force are conducting missions with the P-8 as well.

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George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
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Helions
Helions
3 years ago

“Out with the old and in with the new”. The USN’s mighty P3C subhunter is now in the history books.

https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2020/06/04/fair-winds-and-following-seas-to-the-navys-p-3c

Speaking of history… 76 years since D Day. How the world has changed since then. Makes you wonder if the few remaining veterans who took part view the sacrifices of that operation against the realities of today?

Cheers

Cam
Cam
3 years ago
Reply to  Helions

Argentina seems to like them Old orions and the old worn out South Korean frigates…..

Fedaykin
Fedaykin
3 years ago
Reply to  Cam

The Argentine defence budget rather limits their options along with their usual defence procurement dithering. The P-3C and Ulsan class are a good fit for Argentina that has a huge exclusive economic area to patrol. This is actually to the benefit of the Falkland Islands as whilst neither will seriously alter the balance of power in the area they will allow the Argentine to try and stop illegal fishing in their waters which is a major problem in that part of the world. The squid don’t know about exclusive economic zones or borders. The P-3C with upgrades are viable for… Read more »

Andy
Andy
3 years ago
Reply to  Helions

It’s a depressing thought. For the first time since then, “freedom” is in retreat globally.

Fen Tiger
Fen Tiger
3 years ago
Reply to  Andy

Apparently some P3s’ will remain in use until 2023 with Reserve Units, and “Funnies”.

Rob Collinson
Rob Collinson
3 years ago

Time to ramp up the RAF delivery and to order more to replace the ageing battlefield surveillance fleet which is to be replaced.

julian1
julian1
3 years ago
Reply to  Rob Collinson

The RAF delivery is actually happening pretty quickly…just a couple of months until our third airframe arrives and the 2nd squadron standing up this year…agreed about more airframes though…always…more airframes

John Leigh
John Leigh
3 years ago
Reply to  julian1

They still have the old Shackleton in mothballs ??

Helions
Helions
3 years ago
Reply to  John Leigh

A REAL aircraft… Bring back the SHACK!

Uhhhhhh… Terribly sorry…. Got a little out of hand there…

Cheers

Ian
Ian
3 years ago
Reply to  John Leigh

Where and how many……any port in a storm……

Ron
Ron
3 years ago
Reply to  John Leigh

Speaking about more airframes or even old airframes the UK Government sometimes, no often get me confussed. I will start with the Tornado, we have scrapped ours yet Germany are carrying out an upgrade and will get at least another five years out of them. Then come Sentinel, aparantly it is to be withdrawn from service as it is becoming obsolete, yet the RAF say it is one of the most advanced systems in the world. Then comes the E3 Sentry being rapalced with the E7. So lets start with the E3, possibly in five years when they will be… Read more »

Steve R
Steve R
3 years ago
Reply to  Ron

We got a lot more use out of our Tornados compared to Germany’s, mind.

Ours were pretty worn out, like a car owned by a travelling salesman who drives ip and down the country, vs Germany’s which are akin to a car that’s had one careful old lady driver who only uses it once a week to nip to Tesco.

But I do think we should have kept them going until 2025, which was the original plan. We would at least, by then, have 2 operational squadrons of F35.

Steve R
Steve R
3 years ago
Reply to  Steve R

That said, the fact we use our planes more is exactly why we should really have more of them. Using them as much as we do, theu wear out, whereas if we had more planes the wear and tear can be spread out. Our Typhoon fleet needs to last another 20 years but even if the MoD never sees another defence cut that number will only continue to dwindle in size as the years go on.

Ron
Ron
3 years ago
Reply to  Steve R

I agree we did get a lot more use out of them. What I was trying to highlight is just because something is not the latest piece of kit does not mean that it could not be used in a diffrent theatre. So for example the Tornados, do we really need a flight of Typhoons in the Falklands? At the moment no Argintina does not have any modern combat aircraft, so could a sqn of Tornados be based there, yes. Do we have enough E7 Wedgetail on order to have some based in the Caribbean or Falklands no, but would… Read more »

Daveyb
Daveyb
3 years ago
Reply to  Ron

The problem with the Herc’s was the main wing spars. The MoD thought it would be too expensive to replace, as its pretty much a new wing. It hasn’t stopped us selling them to Austria and Bangledesh. They got overhauled my Marshalls before delivery, with new wing spars! Admittedly they also had some structural repair around the ramp area. It was the same with the Tornado. The main structural element is the wing box that house the swing wing mechanism. These were pretty worn and needed replacing. The rest of the aircraft could have kept going. But BAe were going… Read more »

Steve R
Steve R
3 years ago
Reply to  Daveyb

We make this mistake every time and no one ever learns. Well, it’s not a mistake on the MoD’s part, or the forces’, both those parties are blameless in this, it’s the Treasury’s fault! We were meant to get 232 Typhoons. Due to defence cuts this was reduced to 160 – with the remaining 72 sold to Saudi Arabia. Imagine if we’d been able to keep all those! The wear and tear on each individual airframe would be much less, not to mention we’d have another 2-3 squadrons of Typhoons. Out of our 160 delivered we now have around 140,… Read more »

DaveyB
DaveyB
3 years ago
Reply to  Steve R

I agree on the Treasury part. They only seem to see the short term benefits that smaller numbers brings. It may also be compounded by the MoD, saying we can still achieve our aims with these reduced numbers, not seeing the issues it causes long term. Because by then it will be someone elses problem! I did see a long while back the Saudi Typhoons at Leeming being prepped before delivery. There was a number of RAF Typhoons opposite all on jacks. The techies were robbing the wheels and sticking them on the Saudi ones. It was a pure WTF… Read more »

Steve R
Steve R
3 years ago
Reply to  DaveyB

I didn’t know that. Wow… just… wow! Absolutely shocking! That shows that HMG and MoD really don’t care about our defence. We should never, ever compromise our own forces just to quickly fulfil a sales contract. Even if we had kept the 232 order but done an “over the life of the program” like with F35, we could have fulfilled the contract. The contract was for 72 Typhoons, that should have been done as new planes built for the sale by BAE, would have resulted in several billion in taxes for the economy, not to mention additional work meaning jobs… Read more »