UK Confirms 9 Boeing P-8's to be purchased

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Rumours are apparently starting to circulate at Waddington that the P-8s may stay south of the border....

[Canberra TT.18]

http://www.dsca.mil/major-arms-sales/un ... ed-support

United Kingdom – P-8A Aircraft and Associated Support

WASHINGTON, Mar. 25, 2016 - The State Department has made a determination approving a possible Foreign Military Sale to the United Kingdom for P-8A Aircraft and associated equipment, training, and support. The estimated cost is $3.2 billion. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency delivered the required certification notifying Congress of this possible sale on March 24, 2016.

The Government of the United Kingdom (UK) has requested notification for the possible procurement of up to nine (9) P-8A Patrol Aircraft, associated major defense equipment, associated training, and support. The estimated cost is $3.2 billion.

The UK is a close ally and an important partner on critical foreign policy and defense issues. The proposed sale will enhance U.S. foreign policy and national security objectives by enhancing the UK’s capabilities to provide national defense and contribute to NATO and coalition operations.

The proposed sale will allow the UK to reestablish its Maritime Surveillance Aircraft (MSA) capability that it divested when it cancelled the Nimrod MRA4 Maritime Patrol Aircraft (MPA) program. The United Kingdom has retained core skills in maritime patrol and reconnaissance following the retirement of the Nimrod aircraft through Personnel Exchange Programs (PEPs). The MSA has remained the United Kingdom’s highest priority unfunded requirement. The P-8A aircraft would fulfill this requirement. The UK will have no difficulty absorbing these aircraft into its armed forces.

The proposed sale of this equipment and support will not alter the basic military balance in the region.

The prime contractor involved in this sale is The Boeing Company, Seattle, WA. Implementation of the proposed sale will require approximately sixty-four (64) personnel hired by Boeing to support the program in the United Kingdom. Additional contractors include:

ViaSat, Carlsbad, CA
GC Micro, Petaluma, CA
Rockwell Collins, Cedar Rapids, IA
Spirit Aero, Wichita, KS
Raytheon, Waltham, MA
Telephonics, Farmingdale, NY
Pole Zero, Cincinnati, OH
Northrop Grumman Corp, Falls Church, VA
Exelis, McLean, VA
Terma, Arlington, VA
Symmetrics, Canada
Arnprior Aerospace, Canada
General Electric, UK
Martin Baker, UK

There are no known offset agreements proposed in connection with this potential sale.

There will be no adverse impact on U.S. defense readiness as a result of this proposed sale.

This notice of a potential sale is required by law and does not mean the sale has been concluded.

All questions regarding this proposed Foreign Military Sale should be directed to the State Department's Bureau of Political Military Affairs, Office of Congressional and Public Affairs, pm-cpa@state.gov.

[welshandy]

Rumours are apparently starting to circulate at Waddington that the P-8s may stay south of the border....

Now with Scotland now looking at another independence vote, that rumour may now IMHO become a reality.

[Sparts99]

P8s to Lossiemouth.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36763212

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As mentioned, the order was signed today for the UK's P-8s.

Minimum of 9, maximum of 12, actual unit costs will determine how many are actually received despite what the press releases say has been ordered. The aim is to have at least as many P-8s as there would have been Nimrod MR4As, but there's likely to be some recognition that not enough Nimrods would have been delivered.

A delivery of a single P-8 in RAF markings is planned for 2018 in recognition of the now urgent requirement for one, the remainder will arrive around 2020.

In the meantime, the US are going to be deploying P-8s to the Med, which means it'll soon easier to get an RAF crewed anti-submarine aircraft to the part of the UK that sometimes needs one.

The aircraft will be cleared for Harpoon, Maverick, depth charges and the latest torpedo on delivery, but the US want to certify it for all of the "Joint / Jxxx" air to ground weapons after delivery although there's no suggestion the RAF will use all of those.

Within the RAF there's never been any ambiguity over where it'll be based - always planned to be Scotland.

The MoD is currently working out how to answer the question about how it'll provide boom format air refueling - RC-135, C17 and now the P-8 are boom only and one of the P-8's many missions requires complete independence so cannot rely on allied tankers. There's also talk of the RAF buying some F-35As now, which are also boom only.

Some, none or all of the above might be incorrect, I'll let the reader decide but given where I heard if from I'm happy to go along with it.

[filmman]

MAYDAY
The P8 contract was signed by the Cameron Government. I would not be surprised if it was not being reconsidered; if we really need the capability, 2018 plus is a bit questionable, although it's nice for the Boeing production line. There is also the question of eventual numbers. In the wider context there is also the question of post BREXIT trade deals, EU negotiations the Trump wildcard, F35 costs and type, boom or drogue refuelling and the ongoing squeeze and reallocation of Government spending. A May mini defence review might not be surprising!
Filmman

[page_verify]

A signed deal is a signed deal, these days exiting a contract won't be cheap. None of May's reconsiderations have been foreign policy or defence related, there's no votes in it for her to change decisions when the public considers them boring topics.

[Dan D'Air]

Post Brexit £ value has upped the costs by some 15 per cent.
Maybe exchange rates will improve with time.

Sent from my Y635-L01 using Tapatalk

[davidn]

Post Brexit UK Government borrowing costs have also plummeted to an all time low. UK 10 year gilt yields are now little over 0.6%.

Free money!

The UK Government is also issuing tonnes of cheap debt to buy up all the olderhigher yielding debt, drastically reducing it's long term borrowing costs.....so when you can borrow at near zero when the norm is nearer 5%, whats an extra couple of billion for a load of new planes?

[page_verify]

Nevermind low yield gilts, the UK is about to enter the world of negative interest rates!

[page_verify]

Boeing readies to build four U.K. RAF P-8A jets
August 19, 2016

http://www.militaryaerospace.com/articl ... -jets.html

PATUXENT RIVER NAS, Md., 19 Aug. 2016. Large military aircraft experts at the Boeing Co. are preparing to build four P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol jet aircraft for the United Kingdom Royal Air Force (RAF).
Officials of the U.S. Naval Air Systems Command at Patuxent River Naval Air Station, Md., announced a $68.4 million order Thursday to the Boeing Defense, Space & Security segment in Seattle for long-lead items for four future RAF P-8A aircraft.
The P-8 is a militarized version of the Boeing 737 single-aisle jetliner hardened for long-range maritime patrol and anti-submarine warfare (ASW) missions. For the RAF the P-8 is scheduled to replace the now-retired Hawker Siddeley/BAE Systems Nimrod MR2 -- a maritime patrol version of the de Havilland Comet jet airliner. The Nimrod was in service from 1967 to 2011.
The United Kingdom Ministry of Defence ordered nine P-8A aircraft last month to replace the Nimrod MR2. The RAF will base its future P-8As at RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland, which will bring an additional 400 military personnel RAF Lossiemouth air base. Operators of the P-8A are the U.S., Australia, India, and the United Kingdom.

Thursday's contract modification provides for long-lead parts and efforts related to the manufacture of two full-rate production 4 Lot 8 P-8A multi-mission maritime aircraft for the RAF under the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program. Long-lead items involve system components that require the longest time to build, which could delay overall system production if money isn't allocated for production early in the process.
The P-8A is designed to operate at high altitudes for wide-area reconnaissance, as well as extremely low altitudes over the ocean during close-in searches for potentially hostile submarines. The P-8A is designed to withstand the rigors of low-altitude turbulence and exposure to salt spray.
The aircraft also can remain at high altitudes while hunting for submarines with help from the Northrop Grumman RQ-4N Triton Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) -- a maritime-patrol version of the Global Hawk long-range surveillance UAV.
The U.S. Navy plans call for using BAMS to detect potentially hostile submarines and surface ships, and upon detection, to call in the P-8A to take a closer look or to attack hostile vessels with torpedoes and missiles. The P-8A also can release torpedoes from high altitudes, and has a UAV-based magnetic anomaly detector (MAD) in development.

Boeing is building the Poseidon aircraft at its factory in Renton, Wash. The 737 fuselage and tail sections will come from Spirit AeroSystems in Wichita, Kan., then transferred to Renton where technicians assemble all structural features in sequence.
The P-8A’s flight management system and the stores management system are from GE Aviation Systems in Grand Rapids, Mich. The plane's cabin has as many as seven operator consoles.
The Poseidon’s MX-20HD digital electro-optical and infrared (EO/IR) multi-spectral sensor turrets come from L-3 Communications Wescam in Burlington, Ontario. The MX-20HD is gyro-stabilized and can have as many as seven sensors, including infrared, CCDTV, image intensifier, laser rangefinder, and laser illuminator.
The aircraft has the upgraded APS-137D(V)5 maritime surveillance radar and signals intelligence (SIGINT) system from the Raytheon Co. Space and Airborne Systems (SAS) segment in McKinney, Texas.

The APS-137D(V)5 radar, which is installed on the P-8’s enlarged nose fairing, provides synthetic aperture radar (SAR) for imaging stationary ships and small vessels, coastal and overland surveillance, and high-resolution imaging synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) for imaging surfaced submarines and fast surface vessels operating in coastal waters.
The P-8A will have the CAE Inc. advanced integrated magnetic anomaly detection (MAD) system. The Navy plans to arm the P-8A with the MK 54 torpedo.
On this contract modification Boeing will do the work in Seattle; Baltimore; Greenlawn and North Amityville, N.Y.; and Cambridge, England, and should be finished by July 2017.

[plmc135]

"On this contract modification Boeing will do the work in Seattle; Baltimore; Greenlawn and North Amityville, N.Y.; and Cambridge, England, and should be finished by July 2017."

Oh dear not the sequel to the Amityville horror one hopes!

[page_verify]

Hope not! If the first four air frames are delivered by July 2017, then an RAF delivery date in 2018 still seems likely.

[onemac]

Based at Lossiemouth??? There's a lot of false rumours still floating about then!

Al

[nickowen]

Interesting to note that 15 ZP serials have been reserved....

[scottoz8]

not much room at Lossiemouth when 29(R) go there

[Contrail1958]

not much room at Lossiemouth when 29(R) go there

[tm74sqn]

The Defence Infrastructure Organisation Procurement Plan, projected programmes list was posted on the web a few days ago - said to have been done by accident? If it is still there, see
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... _FINAL.pdf

Page 40 of the document said
Multi -Typhoon Sqn Uplift [Typhoon Sqn uplift 1x LOSI & CONI and relocate OCU to LOSI ] Qtr 2 2018/19 Qtr 4 2019/20

First date is expression of interest for contractors, second is contract award date.

My reading of that is that 29(R) Sqn will re-locate from Coningsby to Lossiemouth some time after 2019/2020.

Time will tell . . . . . !
TM74

[davidn]

Runway at Kinloss would have needed too much work for P-8A

......He explained that the Kinloss runway was 500feet shorter than Lossiemouth – meaning that if it was to be used it would first require a complete upgrade. In addition, the P-8A undercarriage configuration is narrower than the Nimrod – meaning that a much heavier weight is confined to a smaller area.

The depth, length and strength of the Kinloss runway would need to be addressed for that reason – and that put Lossiemouth firmly in control of the new aircraft.

http://www.insidemoray.com/runway-at-ki ... -for-p-8a/

[Bluetail]

Runway at Kinloss would have needed too much work for P-8A

......He explained that the Kinloss runway was 500feet shorter than Lossiemouth – meaning that if it was to be used it would first require a complete upgrade. In addition, the P-8A undercarriage configuration is narrower than the Nimrod – meaning that a much heavier weight is confined to a smaller area.

The depth, length and strength of the Kinloss runway would need to be addressed for that reason – and that put Lossiemouth firmly in control of the new aircraft.

http://www.insidemoray.com/runway-at-ki ... -for-p-8a/

Seems a very strange response to me, considering I've seen the following operate out of Kinloss in recent years, C-17, AN-124, DC-10 B-707, E-3A, TU-154 all very much heavier than a P-8, and all after major upgrade work to the runway at Kinloss in 1996 and 2006. Now as for Lossiemouth, why do you think they backtrack when landing on 23, its because the northern taxiway is way to narrow, which leads me to think similar major upgrade work to the taxiways needs to be done, which is not the case at Kinloss.

The real answer is that they don't want to be proven wrong for the decision to shut Kinloss, so to save face they will shoehorn everything into Lossie, which actually won't be a problem.