CAE To Develop P-8A Poseidon Trainers For US Navy And Australian Air Force

CAE will develop four P-8A operational flight trainers for US Navy and Royal Australian Air Force.

Boeing has awarded the contract to develop simulator hardware for Poseidon operational flight trainers (OFTs), CAE said in a statement.

Two of the P-8A OFTs are for the US Navy, which will bring the Navy's total to 18 P-8A OFTs. The other two P-8A OFTs are part of a United States Cooperative Program via the P-8 Production, Sustainment, and Follow-On Development Memorandum of Understanding with the US Navy to provide the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) with a comprehensive P-8A training system.

The contract for the two RAAF P-8A OFTs was signed in CAE's fourth quarter of fiscal year 2015 and included in the value of contracts announced on April 8, 2015. The contract for the two U.S. Navy P-8A OFTs was signed in CAE's first quarter of fiscal year 2016.

The P-8A OFTs for the RAAF will be similar to the P-8A OFTs that CAE is already developing for Boeing for delivery to the US Navy. CAE designs and manufactures the P-8A OFT hardware to Level D standards, the highest qualification for flight simulators. CAE also provides the 737-800 OFT software baseline and simulation-based software lab environment that is used for P-8A OFT development and integration tasks. CAE then delivers the simulators to Boeing, who installs and integrates software specific to the P-8A aircraft.

"We are pleased to be supporting Boeing and the US Navy in developing the P-8A simulators for the Royal Australian Air Force, marking the first international sale of a comprehensive P-8A training system," said Ray Duquette, President and General Manager, CAE USA.

"The Navy has significantly increased the amount of synthetic training it does as part of the P-8A training program, and the high-fidelity P-8A operational flight trainers developed by CAE and Boeing play a key role in the overall P-8A training curriculum."

The two P-8A OFTs for the RAAF are scheduled for delivery to RAAF Base Edinburgh in late 2017. The two additional P-8A OFTs for the US Navy are scheduled for delivery to Naval Air Station Whidbey Island in 2017.

The P-8A Poseidon is a new long-range anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare aircraft currently being developed for the US Navy by prime contractor Boeing. The P-8A is a derivative of Boeing's next-generation 737-800 aircraft and is used for maritime and littoral operations. The US Navy's warfighting requirement is 117 P-8A aircraft, and these aircraft are replacing the US Navy's current fleet of P-3C Orion aircraft. The Indian Navy and the Royal Australian Air Force are the first international customers of the P-8.