KPLU Local News
(2010-11-12)
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SEATTLE, WA
(KPLU) -
Boeing has opened a new production facility in Seattle for the completion of P-8 maritime reconnaissance planes for the US Navy. It's another milestone in one of Boeing's most important defense contracts.
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The US navy is slated to buy 117 of the new planes over the next decade in a deal that's valued at about $40 billion. The new reconnaissance jet is a derivative of the company's best-selling 737. The P-8 looks a lot like its commercial cousin and it rolls out of the same factory in Renton. But P-8 program manager Chuck Dabondo says it's a very different airplane. For starters, on the belly of the aircraft between its wings is a big bulge that holds bombs. The fuselage is full of extra wiring and it doesn't have any passenger windows.
"And then from the inside, there aren't rows and row of seats," he says. "There are electronics cabinets, five work stations that the navy operators will use to prosecute their missions."
The surveillance equipment they'll be using is high tech radar, infrared scanners and sono-buoys that can sniff out enemy submarines. The planes can fly as low as just a few hundred feet above the ocean, spying out subs that are thousands of feet deep. The P-8s are replacing a well-used fleet of cold-war era P-3s that are still flying missions all over the world.
Boeing says initially, it will take about eight months to install and test all of the systems on each P-8 airframe. The production rate will increase over time, with as many as two dozen planes a year coming out of the new facility. Most will be for the US navy, but several foreign governments including India and Australia are also lining up. © Copyright 2012, KPLU
