21ST CENTURY CAPABILITIES
also cutting-edge. “What you try to do is create a calm, quiet, easy environment to do the work of listening, watching and communicating,” says Air Cdre Gale. “The aircraft is an excellent platform that has a magnificent reliability and serviceability rate, both as the Boeing 737 and in the US Navy as the P-8A. Also, the mission kit is significantly ahead of what is being used presently for MPA tasks. It has a wide-ranging set of sensors, including a very advanced surface-scanning radar able to detect very small objects on the surface at very long range.” Air Cdre Gale also considers the P-8’s synthetic aperture radar and MX-20 electrooptic sensor the best available on the market today. All of these features, when matched with Poseidon’s ability to deploy an unrivalled amount of both active and passive sonobuoys, along with the computing power to monitor large numbers of them simultaneously, make it an incredibly potent detection system. Enormous computing power and ergonomic workstations offer surveillance experts unparalleled capabilities (PHOTOS: US NAVY MASS COMMUNICATION SPECIALIST 3RD CLASS JASON KOFONOW)
later this decade. “The P-8 provides height, speed and reach,” says Wing Commander Rich Berry, a maritime surveillance and security expert. “It provides the height to do anti-submarine warfare in potentially new ways through new technologies, and it provides us with the speed to get to faraway places where we might be called upon to do any type of maritime operation. It’s a step forward, not just from the capability gap we’ve had over the past 10 years, but prior to that as well.” Air Commodore (Air Cdre) Ian Gale, Assistant Chief of Staff for Command and Control, Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C2ISR), and SRO (Senior Responsible Owner) for the P-8A Poseidon programme, has a very clear vision of what will be needed from the platform. “I want it to be flexible in its response option capacities and I want it to be lethal, because it will need to complete the kill chain where necessary.”
RANGE OF WEAPON SYSTEMS Regarding the latter, the P-8A can be equipped with a remarkable range of weaponry, from torpedoes, mines, depth charges and sonobuoys in its weapons bay to airto-surface and air-to-air missiles installed on underwing hardpoints. The on-board ELINT and other technology is
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FUTURE INTEGRATION Other intelligence-gathering opportunities, such as integrating with Remotely Piloted Air Systems (RPAS), await future decisions. The Poseidon was designed to operate in conjunction with the MQ-4C Triton RPAS, with both the American and Australian navies currently testing and developing their own Tritonbased tactics. However, the UK has no current plans to procure Triton, opting instead for the Protector RPAS which is due to replace the Reaper RPAS. If there does turn out to be a maritime role for Protector, it will be integrated with the P-8, “but it’s too early to put any detail on that just yet,” says Air Cdre Gale.
“The aircraft is an excellent platform that has a magnificent reliability and serviceability rate” As a recent Station Commander at RAF Lossiemouth, Air Cdre Gale feels its turnaround in fortunes has been quite remarkable, with his successor now also focusing on the upcoming arrival of additional Typhoons as well as the first P-8As. And while attention is naturally now concentrated on bringing the P-8A to Lossiemouth to perform its primary functions, he notes that, as the RAF transitions to become a next-generation air force, “all our capabilities and platforms need to be interoperable and work together for joint effect. The P-8, the F-35 and the Typhoon will all share a network, will all share tasking and will all be interoperable.”