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[Lex]

LOS ANGELES — The third Boeing P-8A Poseidon aircraft, T3, is being prepared for transfer to U.S. Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., following the completion of its first flight in Seattle on July 29.

T3, which is the mission-system and weapon-certification aircraft, also is expected to make at least one more flight from Boeing Field before joining the first two P-8A test aircraft already at Pax River. During T3’s 2-hr. 48-min. flight, the company says Boeing and U.S. Navy test pilots performed airborne systems checks including engine accelerations and decelerations, autopilot flight modes, and auxiliary power unit and engine shutdowns and starts.

“Ground test data collected in Seattle will be used for in-flight separation and delivery accuracy tests due to take place later this year,” the company says.

T3 is one of six flight-test aircraft being delivered under the U.S. Navy System Development and Demonstration (SDD) contract awarded to Boeing in 2004. The initial airworthiness-test aircraft, T1, entered flight testing in October 2009 and arrived at Pax River in April 2010. T2, the primary mission-system test aircraft, flew to the East Coast in June and has already amassed more than 50 flight test hours.

Assembly of the additional three airframes added under the SDD is also underway at Boeing and at Spirit AeroSystems in Wichita, Kan.

The first production-representative airframe, T4, is moving through the Renton, Wash., final assembly site and has wings attached.

The aircraft will be “factory complete” and handed off from Boeing Commercial to Boeing Defense Systems early in the fourth quarter of this year, the company says. Fuselages for T5 and 6 are in assembly at Spirit Aerosystems, with T5 expected to arrive at Renton later this month or in early September.

T4, T5 and T6 are non-instrumented aircraft and will be used by the Navy at Pax for the initial operational test and evaluation program. Boeing also has conducted more than 110 test conditions on the static test airframe, S1, and expects to start the first of two simulated lifetime cyclic tests on the fatigue airframe, S2, early in 2011.

Up to 117 P-8As are expected to be procured by the Navy for anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions to replace its P-3 fleet. Initial operational capability is planned for 2013. Boeing is also preparing to start assembly of the first of eight P-8I variants for the Indian navy and anticipates additional near-term P-8 sales to several P-3 operator nations, including Australia.

Aviation Week, Aug 3, 2010