By Geoff Fein
Boeing [BA] conducted the first flight of its P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft Saturday, a significant milestone for the program, according to a Navy official.
Capt. Mike Moran, P-8A program manager, told reporters the program is staying on schedule during a teleconference call Monday.
Boeing worked the program real hard, overcame some challenges, and kept the program on track to meet a schedule where we could see this airplane flying for the first time Saturday, he added.
“This is obviously a critical recapitalization of the P-3 airplane that has been in service for 40 plus years. So keeping this program on track and on schedule is of the upmost importance. We worked really hard together to do that,” Moran said. “What was demonstrated Saturday clearly demonstrates our commitment, as a government and Boeing team, to go do exactly that.”
On Saturday, T-1, the first P-8 test platform, took off from Renton Field, Renton, Wash., and approximately three hours and 30 minutes later, landed at Boeing Field, Seattle, Wash. During the initial flight, Boeing test pilots ran the aircraft through a series of flight checks that included airborne systems checks, including engine accelerations and decelerations, autopilot flight modes and auxiliary power unit shutdown and starts, Bob Feldmann, vice president and P-8A program manager, told reporters during the teleconference call.
The aircraft reached a maximum altitude of 25,000 feet during the flight, he added.
“As we look back at Saturday, you are really looking back a number of weeks and months of preparation by the team…incredible sacrifice and resolve by that team…to keep this program on schedule,” Feldmann said.
He added that the significance of the first flight is that 75 percent of the airplane was designed from the ground up to meet the Navy’s requirements.
The P-8 is a military derivative of Boeing’s 737-800.
T-1 was on track for going to Naval Air Warfare Center, Patuxent River, Md., in September for flight tests, but the Navy is looking to extend that transition date to January ’10, Moran said.
“We are right now having that discussion. We asked Boeing to look at keeping the airplane out here a little bit longer because we really want to leverage the experience and expertise that they have out here,” he said.
Moran pointed to Boeing’s recent completion of the flight test program of the Wedgetail. That expertise and experience Boeing has is going to be a benefit, he added.
The S-1 and S-2 aircraft are non-flying assets, Feldmann noted. However, the two aircraft are part of the five airplanes in the System Design and Development phase, along with T-1, T-2 and T-3, Feldmann said.
There are three operational test airplanes: T-4, T-5 and T-6, he added.
“It’s not formal yet, but we are going through the process of making that change to the program,” Moran said.
“We will fly T-1 to the 80 percent loads point, which is really going to be based upon our progress on S-2, which is out here in Seattle,” he added. “Once we get the 80 percent loads completed, that’s the part we will probably transition to Pax. We don’t expect any delay to the test program. As a matter of fact we hope we will see some efficiencies keeping it out here, and that’s quite frankly why we are looking at it.”