- إنضم
- 7 أبريل 2017
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Boeing has received a USD2.2 billion contract for 17 P-8A Poseidon Multimission
Maritime Aircraft (MMA) that includes the first for the United Kingdom.
The contract, which was announced by the company on 3 April but awarded on 30 March, covers 11 aircraft for the US Navy (USN), 4 for the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), and 2 for the UK Royal Air Force (RAF). It also includes options for 32 more aircraft which, if exercised, would bring the contract value up to USD6.8 billion.
The UK government announced its plans to buy nine P-8As in the Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) in late 2015, and signed the formal order at the Farnborough International Airshow in July 2016. According to previous announcements, the total cost of the procurement is valued at GBP3 billion (USD4 billion) over the next 10 years.
Further to the aircraft, the UK government has disclosed that the procurement includes off-the-shelf purchases of unspecified weapons, sonar buoys, and other 'consumables'. It has since been reported that the RAF's P-8As will field the same MK54 torpedoes and Harpoon ant-ship missiles as the USN's.
With the fleet set to be delivered from 2019 through to early 2022, the RAF will operate the type out of RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland. As well as the nine aircraft some 400 operational and support personnel will be located at the base, with GBP100 million being invested in new dedicated infrastructure.
Billed as a 'Multimission Maritime Aircraft' (MMA), the P-8A will be employed primarily for maritime patrol and anti-submarine warfare, but can also be used for anti-surface vessel warfare and overland intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR).
Boeing so far has delivered 53 P-8A Poseidons to the USN (out of a programme of record of 117 aircraft, of which 109 have been approved) and two to the RAAF (which intends to buy 15), as well as eight P-8I Neptunes to the Indian Navy (with four more on contract).
http://www.janes.com/article/69261/boeing-poseidon-contract-includes-first-uk-aircraft
