The U.S. Navy expected to confirm a contract July 30 with Boeing for three additional P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft, which will be used for the operational test and evaluation phase of the program.

The aircraft are the first incremental addition to the baseline contract which covered five airframes – three flying and two ground test – for the P-8A development phase.

The P-8A is scheduled to achieve initial operating capability in late 2013 and full fleet deployment in late 2018. “Every six months the plan is to transition another squadron from P-3s to P-8s,” Navy patrol and reconnaissance group commander Rear Adm. Bill Moran says. “We’ve got enough life left to get us through to that full transition in late 2018.”

The Navy has a stated requirement for up to 117 P-8As, up from around 108 when the program was first awarded, and will use them to replace the 164 P-3s currently in service.

Moran was speaking at official rollout ceremonies for the P-8A at Boeing’s Renton, Wash., facility July 30, where the third flying test airframe T-3, was unveiled. The first pair of test aircraft, T-1 and T-2, are already at Boeing Field, where test equipment and some initial mission equipment is being installed for upcoming flight-tests starting “in the next month or so,” Navy MPRA program manager Capt. Mike Moran says. The initial test phase also includes ground tests on static airframe S-1 and upcoming fatigue tests on S-2, fuselage assembly of which is currently getting under way at Spirit AeroSystems in Wichita, Kan.

Airframe T-3 is expected to “fly over the hill” from Renton to Boeing Field in Seattle in September, and will join the test program at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., in 2010 after a short engineering shakedown phase using Boeing’s flight-test organization. T-2 also will transit to Patuxent River in the first quarter of 2010 following about two months of tests on the West Coast. T-1 is scheduled to join the test program at Patuxent in “March or April 2010,” Moran added.

The P-8A incorporates a strengthened 737-800 fuselage and tail, with a beefed-up wing based on the design of the stretched -900 version. The fuselage is also unique in that it incorporates a weapons bay in the aft lower fuselage. The P-8A also has weapons stations under the wing and raked wingtips in place of winglets.

Photo: Boeing