Boeing Delivers First P-8A Aircraft To U.S Navy

Boeing has announced that it has delivered a P-8A Poseidon aircraft to the U.S. Navy as part of contracts placed last year and earlier this year to deliver 122 jets. The P-8A Poseidon, worth $280 million each, is a long-range aircraft capable of “interoperability” — networkable communications with fighter aircraft, ballistic antimissile systems, carrier strike groups, satellite communications, and other systems — for use in anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. It will carry torpedoes, depth charges, anti-ship missiles and other weapons, and will be able to drop and monitor sonobuoys. In addition to warfare, the P-8A Poseidon will be used to interdict shipping interdiction and to engage in an electronic intelligence. It will influence how the U.S. Navy's maritime patrol and reconnaissance forces train, operate, and deploy, Boeing predicted. "This is our final P-8A delivery of the year,” said Chuck Dabundo, Boeing vice president and P-8 program manager. “We’ll ramp up to 12 deliveries, including P-8I aircraft for India, in 2013. Our in-line production approach, which draws on processes developed on the company's commercial and military programs, has been key to our ability to increase production rates while reducing costs".