P-8A Poseidon Low-Rate Initial Production

While most of the aviation news of the day focuses on the Air Force reopening their Tanker competition, Flight Global has the details of the first part of Navy's the acquisition plan for P-8A Poseidon long range, land based, do everything maritime aircraft.

The US Navy clarified today that it will order 36 Boeing P-8A Poseidons during the first three years of production, perhaps further opening the door to accelerating the in-service date by one year...

NAVAIR expects to order 10 aircraft in fiscal 2010, followed by 12 in FY2011 and 14 in FY2012. Advance procurement funds for the first batch in FY2010 must be awarded to Boeing next year. Nearly $6.3 billion has been set aside in long-range budget plans for the LIRP phase to buy all 36 aircraft, averaging about $175 million for each P-8A.

And you thought the MV-22 was expensive. One of the best kept secrets in aviation acquisition is that the P-8A Poseidon costs about as much to buy off the factory line right now as a F-22A. The P-8A Poseidon is a long-range anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance aircraft. The P-3s are in bad shape, and needed to be replaced yesterday. It is welcome news that the P-8A may be able to be fielded a year early, because the P-8A represents a big part of the integrated battle space the Navy is looking to create with its 21st century platforms.

The Navy talks about layered defenses, and this platform is a big part of those layers. For example, take a few AEGIS ships, the P-8A, the latest F/A-18Es with AESA, the E-2D Hawkeye, CEC throughout the fleet, and the Navy will achieve an integrated networked information capability ready to fight at sea like nothing ever seen at sea before. Throw in some unmanned sensor technologies and secure submarine communications and the battle space opens up.