US Navy receives 100th Poseidon

Boeing has delivered its 100th P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft to the US Navy.

The company announced that it had delivered the 94th mission-capable example to the US Navy on May 14. The service operates an additional six examples as Engineering Manufacturing Development test aircraft.

Stu Voboril, vice president and Boeing’s P-8 programme manager, said: “We’re [honoured] by the Navy’s faith and confidence in our employees and the P-8 system… Our focus has been, and will be, on delivering the world’s best maritime patrol aircraft, bar none.”

This delivery milestone comes as the global Poseidon fleet approaches 300,000 operational flight hours, which were amassed in support of missions such as submarine hunting and aerial reconnaissance operations. Alongside the US Navy, the Indian Navy, Royal Air Force (RAF) and Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) also currently operate the type.

The P-8 – a military derivative of the Boeing 737 Next-Generation (NG) – is a long-range multi-mission maritime patrol aircraft capable of broad-area, maritime and coastal surveillance operations. The aircraft is also capable of performing anti-submarine warfare (ASW), anti-surface warfare (ASuW) and shipping interdiction tasks.

In total, 112 P-8A Poseidons have been handed over to the US Navy and RAAF. A further eight P-8I Neptunes are in service with the Indian Navy and a pair of P-8A Poseidon MRA1s have been delivered to the RAF. Production of the platform continues, with at least 40 more aircraft on order. This comprises 18 more examples for the US Navy, seven for the UK, six for South Korea, five for Norway and four aircraft for New Zealand. India also has an option to acquire a further four P-8Is.