China Rejects U.S. Accusations, Calls Its Fighter Jet Intercept ‘Professional’

China’s Defense Ministry has rejected U.S. accusations that a Chinese fighter jet conducted a “dangerous intercept” of a U.S. Navy surveillance aircraft off the coast of China in international airspace.

The ministry issued a statement Saturday night attributed to spokesman Yang Yujun calling the U.S. accusations “groundless.” It says the Chinese pilot conducted operations that were “professional and the Chinese jet kept a safe distance from the U.S. planes.”

 

The Chinese jet made several close passes by the Navy P-8 Poseidon plane, coming within 30 feet of it at one point, the Pentagon said, adding that the Aug. 19 encounter was the fourth such incident since March.

 

The Chinese statement says “the U.S. large-scale and highly frequent close-in reconnaissance against China is the root cause of accidents.”

 

Meanwhile the Navy is reportedly sending a second aircraft carrier strike group to the Asia Pacific region on the heels of the intercept incident, according to the Washington Free Beacon. The strike group led by the USS Carl Vinson left San Diego on Friday, the Free Beacon reported, citing the Navy’s announcement of a “planned” deployment.

Navy's P-8 Sub Hunter Bets On High Altitude, High Tech; Barf Bags Optional

The Navy's jet-powered P-8 Poseidon patrol plane boasts plenty of advances over the P-3 Orion turboprops it will replace, but for the sensor operators the favorite feature will be very basic: They won't throw up as much.

The P-3's notoriously rough ride at low altitudes and the gunpowder-like stench from the launch tube shooting sonar buoys out the back meant that, "typically, every mission or two you'd have somebody get sick [and] start throwing up into their air sickness bag," said Navy Captain Aaron Rondeau, a P-3 veteran who now runs the P-8 program. "We haven't seen that much with the P-8."

With its more modern and less rigid wing, "it's a much smoother ride than the P-3," Rondeau explained, and the buoys are now launched by compressed air, without the old system's stink. And that just means, he said, that "If your aircrews aren't sticking their heads in barf bags, they can do their missions better."

Not everyone really cares whether the operators barf in the back and believe in the P-8's higher-altitude approach. "I don't think it will work as well," noted naval expert Norman Polmar said bluntly. "It's rather controversial."

In particular, after some waffling back and forth, the Navy decided to leave off a sensor called the Magnetic Anomaly Detector (MAD), which can detect the metal hulls of submarines -- if the plane flies low enough. MAD was crucial to the P-3's traditional low-altitude tactics. Significantly, the P-8 variant that Boeing is building for the Indian Navy will still have it; only the US Navy P-8 will not. Both Rondeau and Boeing argue that the P-8 can more than compensate with more sophisticated sensors and by using its superior computing power to interpret their data.

So with the P-8, the Navy is not just replacing a sixties-vintage propeller plane with a more modern jet, derived from the widely used Boeing 737. It's also betting on new technology to enable a high-altitude approach to both long-range reconnaissance and hunting hostile submarines.

Traditional "maritime patrol aircraft" like the P-3 spend part of their time at high altitude but regularly swoop down, sometimes as low as 200 feet above the waves, to drop sonar buoys, scan for subs with the magnetic anomaly detector, launch torpedoes, and simply eyeball unidentified vessels on the surface. But jets like the P-8 are significantly less fuel-efficient at low altitudes than turboprops like the P-3.

"There's a misconception," said Rondeau. "Some people think that that means P-8 can't do low-altitude anti-submarine warfare [ASW]. We can, and it's very effective down low, [but] we will eventually get to the point where we stay at higher altitudes."

For some of the new sub-hunting technologies, Rondeau argued, going higher actually gives you a better look. Today, for example, one key tool is a kind of air-dropped buoy that hits the water and then explodes, sending out a powerful pulse of sound that travels a long way through the water and reflects off the hulls of submarines, creating sonar signals that other, listening-device buoys then pick up. (The technical name is Improved Extended Echo Ranging, or IEER). Obviously, an explosive buoy can only be used once, and the sonar signal its detonation generates is not precisely calibrated. So the Navy is developing a new kind of buoy called MAC (Multistatic Active Coherent), which generates sound electronically, allowing it to emit multiple, precise pulses before its battery runs down.

"It will last longer and you're able to do more things with it," Rondeau said. And because a field of MAC buoys can cover a wider search area, he said, "we need to stay up high... to be able to receive data from all these buoys and control all these buoys at the same time."

An early version of MAC will go on P-3s next year and on P-8s in 2014, but only the P-8 will get the fully featured version, as part of a suite of upgrades scheduled for 2017. The Navy is deliberately going slow with the new technology. Early P-8s will feature systems already proven on the P-3 fleet and will then be upgraded incrementally. The P-8 airframe itself is simply a militarized Boeing 737, with a modified wing, fewer windows, a bomb-bay, weapons racks on the wings, and a beefed-up structure.

This low-risk approach earned rare words of praise from the Government Accountability Office, normally quick to criticize Pentagon programs for technological overreach. "The P-8A," GAO wrote, "entered production in August 2010 with mature technologies, a stable design, and proven production processes." (There have been issues with counterfeit parts from China, however).

"We had to have this airplane on time," Rondeau said: The P-3s were getting so old, and their hulls are so badly metal-fatigued, that they were all too often grounded for repairs.

So far, Boeing has delivered three P-8As to the training squadron in Jacksonville, Florida. They were preceeded by eight test aircraft, some of which have just returned from an anti-submarine exerise out of Guam. The first operational deployment will come in December 2013, to an unspecified location in the Western Pacific. There the Navy will get to test its new sub-seeking techniques against the growing and increasingly effective Chinese underwater force.

Spirit employees get first-look at Navy anti-sub plane they helped build

One of the U.S. Navy's P-8A Poseidon aircraft was on static display at the Spirit facility in Wichita, Kan. Spirit Wichita employees had a unique opportunity to view and tour the exterior of the P-8A, as well as interact with the P-8A crew. The Boeing 737 derivative’s fuselage, airframe tail sections and struts are designed and built by Spirit Wichita employees. (Sept 10, 2012)

One of the U.S. Navy's P-8A Poseidon aircraft was on static display at the Spirit facility in Wichita, Kan. Spirit's Wichita employees had a unique opportunity to view and tour the exterior of the P-8A, as well as interact with the P-8A crew. The Boeing 737 derivative's fuselage, airframe tail sections and struts are designed and built by Spirit Wichita employees. (Sept 10, 2012)

    One of the U.S. Navy's P-8A Poseidon aircraft was on static display at the Spirit facility in Wichita, Kan. Spirit’s Wichita employees had a unique opportunity to view and tour the exterior of the P-8A, as well as interact with the P-8A crew. The Boeing 737 derivative’s fuselage, airframe tail sections and struts are designed and built by Spirit Wichita employees. (Sept 10, 2012)

    One of the U.S. Navy's P-8A Poseidon aircraft was on static display at the Spirit facility in Wichita, Kan. Spirit's Wichita employees had a unique opportunity to view and tour the exterior of the P-8A, as well as interact with the P-8A crew. The Boeing 737 derivative's fuselage, airframe tail sections and struts are designed and built by Spirit Wichita employees. (Sept 10, 2012)

   One of the U.S. Navy's P-8A Poseidon aircraft was on static display at the Spirit facility in Wichita, Kan. Spirit’s Wichita employees had a unique opportunity to view and tour the exterior of the P-8A, as well as interact with the P-8A crew. The Boeing 737 derivative’s fuselage, airframe tail sections and struts are designed and built by Spirit Wichita employees. (Sept 10, 2012)

    One of the U.S. Navy's P-8A Poseidon aircraft was on static display at the Spirit facility in Wichita, Kan. Spirit's Wichita employees had a unique opportunity to view and tour the exterior of the P-8A, as well as interact with the P-8A crew. The Boeing 737 derivative's fuselage, airframe tail sections and struts are designed and built by Spirit Wichita employees. (Sept 10, 2012)

    One of the U.S. Navy's P-8A Poseidon aircraft was on static display at the Spirit facility in Wichita, Kan. Spirit’s Wichita employees had a unique opportunity to view and tour the exterior of the P-8A, as well as interact with the P-8A crew. The Boeing 737 derivative’s fuselage, airframe tail sections and struts are designed and built by Spirit Wichita employees. (Sept 10, 2012)

    One of the U.S. Navy's P-8A Poseidon aircraft was on static display at the Spirit facility in Wichita, Kan. Spirit's Wichita employees had a unique opportunity to view and tour the exterior of the P-8A, as well as interact with the P-8A crew. The Boeing 737 derivative's fuselage, airframe tail sections and struts are designed and built by Spirit Wichita employees. (Sept 10, 2012)

One of six Boeing 737-800s modified for anti-submarine warfare and other duties for the Navy made a stop in Wichita on Monday afternoon.

LaToya Grady, spokeswoman for the Navy’s maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft, said the airplane, designated T-5, was in Wichita for Spirit AeroSystems employees to see. The fuselage of the P-8A Poseidon, as well as airframe tail sections and struts, are manufactured by Spirit.

Grady said she expected as many as 3,000 Spirit employees to view the outside of the airplane on Monday. It was parked next to a Boeing Wichita hangar on the east side of Oliver.

The airplane that arrived on Monday is the fifth of six P-8As being flight tested by the Navy.

Boeing has received $3.3 billion for production of 13 P-8As — including the six that are being tested — and spares and training devices. Three others have been delivered to Naval Air Station Jacksonville, Grady said.

The Navy could order as many as 117 of the aircraft, Boeing said, which will replace its fleet of P-3C Orion airplanes. The P-3C is built by Lockheed and is a four-engine turboprop that was first delivered to the Navy in 1969.

Cmdr. Gregg Sleppy, who is directing the P-8A test program, said the airplane has a number of duties in addition to anti-submarine warfare, including anti-surface warfare, intelligence gathering, surveillance and reconnaissance. The airplane is in the midst of the first phase of operational testing. Sleppy wouldn’t discuss specific capabilities of the airplane above that of its predecessor, other than to say it “adds some enhanced capabilities” over the P-3C.

Absent the Navy markings and light-gray color, the plane looks a lot like a commercial 737, but with about five times as many antennas and a teardrop-shaped bulb underneath the fuselage.

Mike Schwamman, Spirit’s program director on the P-8A, said the airplane starts out on the same assembly line as other 737s. Only after it is assembled by Boeing in Washington does its military configuration begin to take shape.

“It’s a beautiful airplane, a great product,” Schwamman said.

Besides Spirit, other manufacturing partners on the Boeing-led P-8A project are CFM International, Raytheon, GE Aviation and BAE Systems.

VX-1 Flies P-8 Poseidon during RIMPAC 2012

The P-8A Poseidon jet, a replacement maritime patrol aircraft for the P-3C Orion, made its Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise debut this year, flown by two air crews from Air Test and Evaluation Squadron (VX) 1 at Marine Corps Base Hawaii in Kaneohe Bay, during the 23rd edition of the biennial exercise .

"While the P-3C Orion is a very forgiving aircraft and has served the fleet very well, the P-8A Poseidon is easier to fly, trims well, and handles flawlessly [at low altitude]," said Lt. Cmdr. Chris Artis, VX-1 maintenance officer and integrated training team pilot. "It's easy to maneuver, and the situational awareness in the cockpit is unlike anything I've ever seen before. Getting used to the technology and the different displays can be a challenge, but overall it's fun to fly."

The VX-1 crews flew two P-8As during 24 exercise events ranging from routine test flights to simulated anti-submarine warfare. VX-1 officials said training requirements are extensive in the P-8A because of the complexity and the speed of the aircraft, and that RIMPAC provided extensive, open airspace and a robust exercise schedule where the squadron could demonstrate the capability of the new aircraft.

"The addition of two P-8A aircraft from Test and Evaluation Squadron 1 enabled us to get an early look at how we can integrate this new platform in a Joint and Combined operating environment," said Adm. Cecil D. Haney, U.S. Pacific Fleet commander, who flew a mission with VX-1 earlier in the week. "I had the opportunity to personally observe its great potential during a flight where the crew demonstrated each weapon system while we conducted ASW and ISR."

The P-8A is based on the Boeing 737-800ERX airliner, but incorporates a host of modifications. The Poseidon will replace the P-3C Orion, now in its 50th year of service, as a long-range anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft. It will maximize the experience and technology of the Orion but with significant growth potential, greater payload capacity, advanced mission systems, software and communications. Six additional fuel tanks in P-8As allow for the jet's extended range.

"The P-3C is an aging airframe with aging systems on board." said Cmdr. Gregory Sleppy, VX-1 operational test director for the P-8. "It's becoming very expensive to operate because of the age of the airframe, and has been up for 50 years; that's half the life of [naval] aviation."

P-8As feature Raytheon multi-mission surface search radars, and incorporate a short bomb bay aft of the wings for torpedoes, sonobouys (small expendable sonar capsules that are dropped or ejected from the aircraft for anti-submarine warfare or underwater acoustic research), and cargo. Additionally, the jets will use new hydrocarbon sensors to detect vapors from diesel submarines and other conventionally powered ships.

"We can look forward to an increased availability rate right off the bat," said Sleppy. "Next you're going to see a more interoperable platform. The communications suite on the aircraft is far more advanced. Those are going to be the immediate things that the fleet commanders are going to see."

Twenty-two nations, more than 40 ships and submarines, over 200 aircraft and 25,000 personnel are participating in the RIMPAC exercise from June 29 to Aug. 3 in and around the Hawaiian Islands. The world's largest international maritime exercise, RIMPAC provides a unique training opportunity that helps participants foster and sustain the cooperative relationships that are critical to ensuring the safety of sea lanes and security on the world's oceans. RIMPAC 2012 is the 23rd exercise in the series that began in 1971.

Boeing Awards P-8 Supplier Contracts to 2 Australian Companies

Agreements with Lovitt Technologies, Ferra Engineering support international growth

Boeing has awarded contracts totaling nearly US$1.85 million to Australian companies Lovitt Technologies Australia and Ferra Engineering to manufacture parts and assemblies for the P-8A Poseidon maritime reconnaissance aircraft.

“Boeing continues to capture opportunities for value and growth through partnering with Australian suppliers,” said Ian Thomas, president of Boeing Australia & South Pacific. “Over the past four years, we have awarded more than US$230 million in contracts for Australian industry.”

Lovitt Technologies Australia, based in Melbourne, and Ferra Engineering, based in Brisbane, were identified by Boeing’s Office of Australian Industry Capability (OAIC), part of the Defence Materiel Organisation’s Global Supply Chain Program. Both companies have a number of existing contracts with Boeing.

“We’re pleased that our engagement with the OAIC has allowed us to gain traction into several Boeing defence programs, and P-8 is the latest one of these,” said Marcus Ramsay, managing director for Lovitt Technologies. “This work package will give us the opportunity to perform and increase our work statement on this program.”

Lovitt Technologies will manufacture mission systems parts and assembly fabrications for the P-8 aircraft. The company also supplies parts for the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey tiltrotor and Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet programs.

Ferra Engineering will supply internal and external airframe parts and assemblies to support various P-8 flight and mission systems. The company was named Boeing’s International Supplier of the Year in 2011. The firm also manufactures spare parts for Boeing Commercial Aviation Services and the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet program.

“Over the past four years, Ferra has worked very closely with the OAIC on training and development, which has enabled us to become more competitive,” said Mark Scherrer, managing director for Ferra Engineering. “With continued demonstrated performance, we expect our business to continue to rapidly expand. Through the support of the OAIC, a truly global company like Ferra has been able to build long-term sustainable business with a first-choice partner like The Boeing Company.”

The OAIC provides Australian small and medium enterprises with mentoring and training in areas such as Lean manufacturing, quality management systems, specialised manufacturing and machining skills, and business management. Additionally, the OAIC provides marketing assistance by helping match the needs of Boeing and its key suppliers with the capabilities of Australian industry and offering bid opportunities.

2nd Boeing P-8I Aircraft for India Completes 1st Flight

The second Boeing  P-8I aircraft for the Indian Navy completed its initial flight on July 12, taking off from Renton Field at 3:29 p.m. and landing two hours and 14 minutes later at Boeing Field in Seattle. The P-8I, a derivative of the Boeing Next-Generation 737-800 commercial airplane, is the second of eight long-range maritime reconnaissance and anti-submarine warfare aircraft Boeing is building for India.

"The program is on plan and the Indian Navy is excited for the P-8I to join its fleet," said Leland Wight, P-8I program manager for Boeing.

During the flight, Boeing test pilots performed airborne systems checks and took the P-8I to a maximum altitude of 41,000 feet prior to landing. Boeing will begin mission systems installation and checkout work on the aircraft in the coming weeks.