Boeing Pushes P-8A Pod To Boost International Sales
Guy Norris
Boeing
is using Dubai Airshow 2021 to showcase an internally funded multi-role belly
pod for the P-8A maritime patrol aircraft.
The
pod is designed to house a wide range of sensors and mission systems, including
potential multiple configurations of equipment provided by operator nations.
Housed
under the forward fuselage on the center weapon station, the pod has already
attracted interest from P-8A operators like Australia and the UK, says Stu
Voboril, P-8A vice president and program manager. “With the ability to put new
sensors in it, potentially developed using in-country capabilities and sensors,
this allows them to do different missions than just the standard P-8A.”
“We’ve
got a lot of traction for that from the international community lately and they
are very interested in it,” says Voboril, who adds that Boeing is willing to
negotiate whether the pod is sourced from within the company or from the
operator country based on the Boeing design. “We’re very open to any of those
options and we think that could open up a larger market space.”
With the imminent delivery of the first P-8A to Norway and a recent order win from Germany, Boeing now has eight international customers for the 737-derivative outside of the primary operator, the U.S. Navy. “The international demand for the P-8A continues to grow, even the U.S. Navy is still getting nine more aircraft with Lot 12 for their reserve squadrons,” says Voboril, who adds that the service is hoping for further funding to meet its stated requirement for 138 aircraft. A further two P-8As have been proposed in the fiscal 2022 U.S. defense budget request which is still under negotiation.
The
first P-8As for New Zealand and South Korea are also due for delivery in 2022
and 2023, while further aircraft are in production for existing operators such
as India, which is working with the U.S. Navy on a repeat buy for up to six
aircraft. “The timing for this is coming up on us really closely here over the
next couple of months,” says Voboril. Additional potential international
operators include Canada as well as Saudi Arabia—rumored to have been in talks
over ordering the model since 2017.
Boeing
also expects additional market traction from the growing sophistication of
maritime threats and increasing obsolescence of older patrol aircraft such as
the Lockheed P-3.
“We
continue to see more submarine capability from various nations being fielded at
a pace we haven’t seen since the Cold War, and with the P-3 retiring over the
years the P-8A is a logical contender,” says Voboril. The company puts the
potential P-3 replacement market at around 75-plus aircraft.
Developed
with the same digital design tools used for Boeing’s T-7 advanced trainer, the
pod will attach to existing attachment, power and cooling access points already
provided for payloads such as the APS-149 Littoral Surveillance Radar System
and the follow-on Advanced Airborne Sensor radar. “Customers might want to do
signal or communications intelligence or different kinds of intelligence,
surveillance and reconnaissance missions, and have their own functions or their
own mechanisms to do that using their own capability within country,” says
Perry Yaw, Boeing’s leader of P-8 global sales and marketing.
Although fully designed, the pod still needs to go
through airworthiness certification. The timing of that will be customer
dependent, says Boeing. “If it is multiple nations then we’ll have a coalition
or a partnership, and work through all the air-worthiness testing to get the
pod certified,” the company adds. The company says wind-tunnel tests also
indicate a negligible drag penalty for the installation.
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