KPLU Local News
(2010-11-11)
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Boeing Vice President and P-8 Program Manager Chuck Dabondo with US Navy Captain Mike Moran at the ribbon cutting for the new P-8 production facility in Seattle, near Boeing Field.
Photo by Bellamy Pailthorp / KPLU.
The new P-8A Poseidon will replace the cold-war era P-3C airplanes that are used to hunt out enemy submarines in missions all over the world. The US Navy has ordered 117 of them to begin going into service in 2013. Boeing Vice President Chuck Dabondo is the P-8 program manager.
"It performs an awesome mission for our country and if you look at its ability to do surveillance and fly over the water and detect and track submarines and protect our fleets in the ocean, it's just an important mission and a very relevant mission for the country today."
India's navy has also ordered a version of the new plane and talks are underway with several other foreign governments including Australia and Saudi Arabia.
Several hundred Boeing workers, from engineers to machinists, will work in the new building. The planes are rolled out of the 737 factory in nearby Renton, then flown to Boeing field and rolled into the P-8 hangar where high-tech surveillance systems are installed.
The company says the US contract for the first five test aircraft alone is worth nearly 4 billion dollars and supports about two thousand jobs company-wide. When production is in full swing several years from now, Boeing says it could produce as many as 24 P-8s annually.
Several hundred Boeing workers, from engineers to machinists, will work in the new building. The planes are rolled out of the 737 factory in nearby Renton, then flown to Boeing field and rolled into the P-8 hangar where high-tech surveillance systems are installed and tested.
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