February 11, 2014 By Bill Sweetman Source: AWIN First
“Four or five nations” are showing strong interest in the Boeing P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol and antisubmarine warfare (ASW) aircraft, according to Chris Raymond, Boeing Defense, Space & Security vice president for business development and strategy.
“These are down to a technical level, not a cursory what-is-it level,” Raymond said on the eve of the Singapore air show. “They are doing analysis of range and coverage, how it would fit in their fleets, life-cycle costs.”
Two or three of the potential candidates are in the Asia-Pacific area, Raymond says. (One of the others is most likely the United Kingdom.) Not all of them currently operate fixed-wing ASW aircraft. “These are new requirements, not just replacements,” Raymond says.
In some cases, Boeing sees its new Maritime Surveillance Aircraft, based on a Bombardier Challenger 605 airframe, as being complementary to the P-8 or other ASW platforms. The company is moving towards the idea of a family of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems ranging from the P-8 through the MSA and the King Air-based Ramis (reconfigurable airborne multi-sensor system) to the Insitu ScanEagle and Integrator unmanned air systems.
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