World News
(2009-07-30)
Listen Now:
null
Local members of the Navy pose with one of the P-8 test aircraft in Renton.
Photo by Bellamy Pailthorp.
At the roll out ceremony, patriotic tunes from a military marching band filled a huge hangar in Renton. Boeing literally rolled out a red carpet on its factory floor to welcome its partners. Admiral Gary Roughead, the highest ranking officer in the navy, told a crowd that included hundreds of local sailors in their dress whites, the new jet is urgently needed. The P-8s will replace the navy's aging fleet of P-3s, which had their hey-day during the cold war.
"It must be delivered on time and on budget," the admiral said, "because we are literally, as many of you know, flying the wings off the P-3 airplane."
Two and a half years ago, 39 P3s were grounded because of cracks found beneath their wings. They're used for reconnaissance - hunting out enemy submarines and pirates at sea, as well as improvised explosive devices on the ground.
The new P-8 is expected to go into service in 2013. Two foreign customers, India and Australia, are also in line. It's a derivative of the 7-37 dash 800, a newer and longer version of Boeing's most popular passenger plane. Boeing says the P-8 program currently employs about two thousand people inside the company.
Boeing Promotional Video of P-8 Assembly
© Copyright 2012, KPLU
