Navy flaunts new Boeing P-8I in maiden flight

[thestringshredder]

Navy flaunts new Boeing P-8I in maiden flight

The Indian Navy’s newly-acquired Boeing P-8I long range maritime reconnaissance plane has successfully carried out a long distance maiden flight when it flew out of Arakkonam in Tamil Nadu to Emerald Island in the Andaman and Nicobar islands.

The plane, with anti-submarine warfare capability, took off from the naval air base INS Rajali and landed at INS Utkrosh air field on Tuesday, a Navy officer said here.

“This is its maiden flight since its arrival in Arakkonam base in May this year,” the officer said.

Piloted by Squadron commander-designate Commander H S Jhajj, the aircraft with the call sign ‘IN 321’ was “welcomed” to the islands by tri-services Andaman and Nicobar Command Chief Air Marshal P K Roy, a helicopter pilot himself.

The P-8I is the first of the eight aircraft being procured by the Indian Navy under a contract signed with Boeing in January 2009 for `11,000 crore.

The P-8Is are based on the Boeing 737-800 platform and is the Indian Naval variant of the P8A Poseidon aircraft that Boeing has developed for the US Navy.

India is the first international customer of this aircraft, which is equipped with both foreign as well as indigenous sensors for maritime reconnaissance, anti-submarine operations and electronic intelligence missions, including the American Harpoon missiles.

The aircraft has state-of-the-art sensors and highly potent anti-surface and anti-submarine weapons.

The induction of these aircraft into the Indian Navy has provided a quantum leap to India’s maritime surveillance capability in the Indian Ocean region and enhanced the Navy’s strategic reach, as it can fly non-stop to reach the eastern or western end of the Indian Ocean within a short period.

Link - Navy flaunts new Boeing P-8I in maiden flight | idrw.org

 

[OzPete]

Good news. But the following from gps3333's Nav Log [ as a newby I cannot yet publish website strings ] is a cautionary tale (date unknown) which still may be relevant to India's first P-8I :

Report: Navy's P-8 Aircraft Plagued with Problems; Deployment in Doubt



Received from a former P-3 crewmate. It would appear that there are some serious development problems with the new P8 aircraft.
Here is some input from a friend, USN Retired, who is working for a defense contractor who has a contract with both P-3 and P-8 development. He is working with the P3 but has a LOT of input from the P-8 part of the company. Three cases in point about the waste of our defense establishment.

Sonobouy launching: The P-8 can’t launch sonobouys at any high speed. The aircraft has to slow down to a very (below P-3 speed) to launch sonobouys. The precludes open ocean search from high altitude due to the speed. The aircraft has a very sophisticated launch package that fires the sonobouys straight down which causes them to angle aft in the slip stream and hang up in the tube. Still not resolved. [This is utterly brain-dead; not accounting for a sonobouy's ballistic launch -- Ed.]

Sonobuoy launching: To launch the bouys, the Navy and Boeing decided it needed a very high pressure air expulsion system. Thus there is a tank at about 6000 PSI to achieve the launch of a series of bouys. Great, EXCEPT that Boeing installed quite a SMALL reservoir which means it has to be recharged fairly often. The compressor chosen is small which means that it takes 2-3 hours to recharge the reservoir. Those assessing survivability pointed out that a single round to the reservoir, while the A/C is on the ground, would blow up the whole aft section of the A/C. So . . . now the recommendation is that the reservoir be discharged while the A/C is on the ground. Whoops. To recharge the reservoir with the small compressor would take 8 hours. Sooo now there is a suggestion that to quickly recharge that 6000 PSI reservoir that bleed air from the engine be used to quickly do the recharge!!!. Imagine all the extra plumbing and valves to do that.

Ocean surveillance: For years ALL merchant ships have had to have a transponder giving their name, location, port of call, cargo, etc. P-3's have had a receiver on board for years able to receive this information. If you have a private craft and wish to be able to know what ships are around you it is possible to buy a receiver for about 5,000 dollars which has extensive decoding capability. The P-8 does NOT have such a receiver. The Navy apparently failed to specify that such a devise was required to be in the electronics package. Now the Navy is asking for such a receiver, called ASI, to be included. Boeing says to add another receiver would cost, are you ready for this, $60 Million!!!!! This is their cost to do all the drawings and run all the cables, etc.!!!

So, between the Navy screwing up and Boeing milking the cash cow, we have a P-8 that basically cannot drop sonobouys [a major component of ASW] and unable to monitor merchant shipping, a major component of ocean surveillance.

YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK.

This confirms/details the "problems" suggested by a retired Pax River engineer (Contractor) at a social gathering. He particularly noted low level performance/on station time. He blamed the [inappropriate?] choice of the Boeing on Navy brass who wanted a "real jet plane" in lieu of the turbo prop. (Can you spell "S-3 Viking?") That claim may or not be a reflection of the process. I thought he might be biased against Boeing as a Lockheed guy ... but he apparently understated the situation (he didn't want to talk too much in negative terms to me . . a guy he had just met)

BTW, the term "system bugs" in the Subject line seems like a SERIOUS understatement. You don't work the "bugs" out of low level on-station time measured in minutes due to fuel temperature. That is not a software "fix."

No details of the other "weather, take-off, and flight envelope restrictions" which do not sound trivial Remaining aircraft weather, take-off, and flight envelope restrictions should not significantly affect mission operations and are on track for resolution prior to P-8A operational deployment.

 

[Capt.Popeye]

Good news. But the following from gps3333's Nav Log [ as a newby I cannot yet publish website strings ] is a cautionary tale (date unknown) which still may be relevant to India's first P-8I :

Report: Navy's P-8 Aircraft Plagued with Problems; Deployment in Doubt



Received from a former P-3 crewmate. It would appear that there are some serious development problems with the new P8 aircraft.
Here is some input from a friend, USN Retired, who is working for a defense contractor who has a contract with both P-3 and P-8 development. He is working with the P3 but has a LOT of input from the P-8 part of the company. Three cases in point about the waste of our defense establishment.

Sonobouy launching: The P-8 can’t launch sonobouys at any high speed. The aircraft has to slow down to a very (below P-3 speed) to launch sonobouys. The precludes open ocean search from high altitude due to the speed. The aircraft has a very sophisticated launch package that fires the sonobouys straight down which causes them to angle aft in the slip stream and hang up in the tube. Still not resolved. [This is utterly brain-dead; not accounting for a sonobouy's ballistic launch -- Ed.]

Sonobuoy launching: To launch the bouys, the Navy and Boeing decided it needed a very high pressure air expulsion system. Thus there is a tank at about 6000 PSI to achieve the launch of a series of bouys. Great, EXCEPT that Boeing installed quite a SMALL reservoir which means it has to be recharged fairly often. The compressor chosen is small which means that it takes 2-3 hours to recharge the reservoir. Those assessing survivability pointed out that a single round to the reservoir, while the A/C is on the ground, would blow up the whole aft section of the A/C. So . . . now the recommendation is that the reservoir be discharged while the A/C is on the ground. Whoops. To recharge the reservoir with the small compressor would take 8 hours. Sooo now there is a suggestion that to quickly recharge that 6000 PSI reservoir that bleed air from the engine be used to quickly do the recharge!!!. Imagine all the extra plumbing and valves to do that.

Ocean surveillance: For years ALL merchant ships have had to have a transponder giving their name, location, port of call, cargo, etc. P-3's have had a receiver on board for years able to receive this information. If you have a private craft and wish to be able to know what ships are around you it is possible to buy a receiver for about 5,000 dollars which has extensive decoding capability. The P-8 does NOT have such a receiver. The Navy apparently failed to specify that such a devise was required to be in the electronics package. Now the Navy is asking for such a receiver, called ASI, to be included. Boeing says to add another receiver would cost, are you ready for this, $60 Million!!!!! This is their cost to do all the drawings and run all the cables, etc.!!!

So, between the Navy screwing up and Boeing milking the cash cow, we have a P-8 that basically cannot drop sonobouys [a major component of ASW] and unable to monitor merchant shipping, a major component of ocean surveillance.

YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK.

This confirms/details the "problems" suggested by a retired Pax River engineer (Contractor) at a social gathering. He particularly noted low level performance/on station time. He blamed the [inappropriate?] choice of the Boeing on Navy brass who wanted a "real jet plane" in lieu of the turbo prop. (Can you spell "S-3 Viking?") That claim may or not be a reflection of the process. I thought he might be biased against Boeing as a Lockheed guy ... but he apparently understated the situation (he didn't want to talk too much in negative terms to me . . a guy he had just met)

BTW, the term "system bugs" in the Subject line seems like a SERIOUS understatement. You don't work the "bugs" out of low level on-station time measured in minutes due to fuel temperature. That is not a software "fix."

No details of the other "weather, take-off, and flight envelope restrictions" which do not sound trivial Remaining aircraft weather, take-off, and flight envelope restrictions should not significantly affect mission operations and are on track for resolution prior to P-8A operational deployment.

A response to some of the points raised above.

1.The IN's operational doctrines are very different from the USN. The IN uses its aircraft at much lower altitudes than the USN does. 'Hard Deck' can be as low as 200 m above SL. That is also the reason why the IN asked for fitment of the MAD package on the Poseidon that the USN will not have. IN also operates ASW aircraft at lower speeds than the USN. The Poseidon will quickly ingress to the area of operation then operate on lower speeds to maximise time on station, even using single engine operation if necessary.

2.Service Air capacity is no big problem at all (assuming the report above is true). Retrofitting a larger capacity system is not difficult at all.

3.AIS (not ASI) is a 'no big deal piece of equipment'. AIS systems which work on VHF are very cheaply available COTS and are a very simple add-on. In any case a great deal of the surveillance and comms. equipment on board the IN's Poseidons are Indian sourced including (but not limited to) the Electronic Signature Mgmt Systems on board. BTW, India has her own Satellite based AIS monitoring system and the IN's Poseidon's are Sat-Linked to the Indian Satellite system.

The writing in the blog quoted above seems to be from an old school guy. That grew up on Turbo-Props. Turbo-Prop aircraft have their pluses; most notably in cost of acquisition terms. But Jets allow much faster deployment at distant station areas. And in some parts of the world, Jet A1 costs less than ATF. Plus Indian AME's (both Civilian and Service) are much more familiar with Boeing's airframe and engines than they would be with any Turbo-Prop equivalent that the US could offer. IN's Poseidon airframes and engines can be easily be maintained by Air-India. Air-India has the only certified Service Facility in South Asia. While scores of Pvt Indian airlines also maintain their Boeing 737 series aircraft in India too.

 

[OzPete]

A response to some of the points raised above.

1.The IN's operational doctrines are very different from the USN. The IN uses its aircraft at much lower altitudes than the USN does. 'Hard Deck' can be as low as 200 m above SL. That is also the reason why the IN asked for fitment of the MAD package on the Poseidon that the USN will not have. IN also operates ASW aircraft at lower speeds than the USN. The Poseidon will quickly ingress to the area of operation then operate on lower speeds to maximise time on station, even using single engine operation if necessary.

2.Service Air capacity is no big problem at all (assuming the report above is true). Retrofitting a larger capacity system is not difficult at all.

3.AIS (not ASI) is a 'no big deal piece of equipment'. AIS systems which work on VHF are very cheaply available COTS and are a very simple add-on. In any case a great deal of the surveillance and comms. equipment on board the IN's Poseidons are Indian sourced including (but not limited to) the Electronic Signature Mgmt Systems on board. BTW, India has her own Satellite based AIS monitoring system and the IN's Poseidon's are Sat-Linked to the Indian Satellite system.

The writing in the blog quoted above seems to be from an old school guy. That grew up on Turbo-Props. Turbo-Prop aircraft have their pluses; most notably in cost of acquisition terms. But Jets allow much faster deployment at distant station areas. And in some parts of the world, Jet A1 costs less than ATF. Plus Indian AME's (both Civilian and Service) are much more familiar with Boeing's airframe and engines than they would be with any Turbo-Prop equivalent that the US could offer. IN's Poseidon airframes and engines can be easily be maintained by Air-India. Air-India has the only certified Service Facility in South Asia. While scores of Pvt Indian airlines also maintain their Boeing 737 series aircraft in India too.

Thanks for the information Captain Popeye the commonality with civilian 737s is a big plus. Yes I also gained the impression that many of the judgements were from someone who preferred the good old days of the prop driven Orion.

Cheers

Pete

 

[Capt.Popeye]

Thanks for the information Captain Popeye the commonality with civilian 737s is a big plus. Yes I also gained the impression that many of the judgements were from someone who preferred the good old days of the prop driven Orion.

Cheers

Pete

You are welcome, Pete. My pleasure entirely.

The Gentleman above is probably a retired person and a 'tax-payer' besides. So he is likely to be hyper-sensitive to taxpayer's funding of equipment that can be perceived to be 'lemons'. Which is quite understandable!

Of course there have been huge procurement scandals in US MOD procurements; e.g. toilet seat covers for C-5A Galaxy transports at abt USD 6000 apiece!