The US Navy has awarded a number of contracts to Boeing for the provision of kits to install a sixth mission crew workstation on US Navy and RAAF P-8A Poseidon maritime surveillance aircraft.
The contracts, totalling about US$34m (A$50m) cover the production and delivery of 56 Sixth Mission Crew Workstation (MCW) Retrofit B-kits for US Navy Lot 1-5 P-8As, and four sixth MCW Retrofit B-kits for RAAF Lot 6 P-8As.
“Our ability to continue to enhance the P-8’s capabilities is really a reflection of our commitment to give our customers the product they need, when they need it,” Boeing’s P-8 program manager, Fred Bruner said in a statement. “By using this kind of evolutionary approach, we’ve been able to get the aircraft out there, performing at an incredibly high level, and now will add even more capability to support missions around the world.”
The additional workstation will enable increased mission capability, versatility, data analysis in high workload missions.
The four kits will bring all 12 RAAF P-8As delivered or on order up to a common interior standard. To date, seven P-8As have been delivered to the RAAF; A47-001 to -004 from Lot 6 , aircraft A47-005 to -008 were or will be delivered from Lot 7, and aircraft A47-009 to 012 are currently being manufactured in Lot 8, and the second and third batches have been or will be delivered with the sixth MCW.
The four RNZAF P-8As to be manufactured as part of Lot 11 will also have the sixth MCW.