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Boeing To Find Out Friday Whether It Will Build New Sub Hunters

Which platform is going to be announced on June 6th?


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webmaster

The Grass is Greener!
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Seattle Times
May 27, 2004

Boeing To Find Out Friday Whether It Will Build New Sub Hunters

By Dominic Gates, Seattle Times Aerospace Reporter

A converted Boeing 737 jet, its wings bristling with missiles, could be the Navy's pick as the next-generation aircraft for hunting and killing submarines.

After a four-year-long competition, the Defense Acquisition Board meets tomorrow at the Pentagon to award the $2.25 billion project.

With hundreds of jobs and a huge order for 737s at stake, the outcome is unpredictable.

Boeing is up against Lockheed Martin, which is offering an updated version of the anti-submarine turboprop that does the job today.

If Boeing wins the Multi-Mission Maritime Aircraft (MMA) contract, the Navy will order at least 110 of its 737s.

Follow-on orders from other countries could bump that up to 300 jets, a massive boost to an already healthy 737 order book that would significantly extend the life of Boeing's plant in Renton.

A Boeing win could also create about 800 primarily white-collar engineering, programming and technical positions in Kent, where the MMA systems are integrated and tested, the company said.

Lockheed has 40 years of incumbency on its side. It built the current aging fleet of Navy anti-submarine airplanes, called P-3s.

Championing Boeing's case is Tim Norgart, a former wing commander of four P-3 squadrons based at Whidbey Island.

With 25 years as a tactical coordinator and mission commander, Norgart has anti-submarine warfare in his genes. His father flew P-2s a generation earlier.

Norgart, who joined Boeing as MMA director after leaving the Navy in 2000, is a passionate salesman for the company's radical bid to replace the current propeller-driven P-3s with faster jet aircraft.

"I was recruited as hard by (Lockheed). I chose to come here. For me, this is the solution," Norgart said. "I can't see the Navy flying props in 2025. The technology has gone beyond that."

That argument resonates with Paul Nisbet, aerospace analyst with JSA Research.

"Boeing is the dark horse here. But they've really made a bold proposal," said Nisbet. "Who needs 20-year-old technology?"

The outcome will be made public after the contract is signed, as early as next week.

The anti-submarine mission

The initial in P-3 stands for Pursuit. The MMA aircraft's mission is to speed to a war zone ahead of any U.S. military deployment and sweep the oceans for any submarine or surface threats to the Navy's fleet.

Numerous electronic and sonic sensors search for signals as the plane flies low over the ocean, patiently crisscrossing for hours until it makes contact and identifies a submarine's location.

Originally deployed during the Cold War, these airplanes were used during much of Norgart's Navy service to track Soviet nuclear subs — though no submarines were ever destroyed in that superpower stand-off.

In the newly unstable post-Cold War world, the underwater threat is still considered deadly.

In the Falklands War in the early 1980s, two Argentine diesel-electric submarines threatened the British task force, constricting the freedom of the British surface fleet. Lurking underwater with the engines switched off, such submarines are quieter and harder to detect than nuclear subs.

Some 42 countries operate diesel-electric submarines today.

"Some are not our friends," said Norgart. "Are we willing to risk a $3 billion dollar aircraft carrier? We can't afford not to have this capability."

Bold vs. conservative

The big difference between the bids is the basic airplane.

Boeing's pitch to the Navy is that a modern jet will get to the war zone much faster and more reliably than a turboprop.

And with a mass production line and worldwide spare-parts support system already in place, Boeing claims the Navy will save money by using a converted commercial airliner rather than building a unique airplane for this one job.

To answer doubts that a 737 could loiter for hours at slower speeds — the hallmark of the MMA mission — last fall Boeing flew a 737 business jet on a series of test flights, cruising at 250 feet above the Atlantic and buzzing oceangoing freighters.

A tour-de-force in marketing, the successful tests showed that the 737 met Navy requirements.

Lockheed's P-3 production line in Marietta, Ga., closed in 1995. With no prototype to test, Boeing's rival has been able only to simulate operation of its proposed P-3 upgrade, the Orion21. Jack Crisler, Lockheed Martin's director of MMA business development, dismisses Boeing's test.

"Boeing has flown a 737," said Crisler, "It's not an MMA. It's not weaponized; it's not missionized."

Crisler said the 737's air-worthiness will need to be recertified after its wings are hardened to hold 3,000 pounds of missiles apiece, a bomb bay is installed in the lower fuselage and holes are cut in internal pressure bulkheads to accommodate more weapons.

In contrast, he said, upgrading the engines, the weapons, and the electronic systems and sensors on the existing P-3 airframe — "a proven, rugged, weaponized aircraft" — is much less risky a step for the military.

And though Boeing meets the Navy's threshold requirement for "endurance" — spending four hours flying low above the water in search of subs — Crisler said that the turboprop can stay much longer on station.

"Ours is the low-cost, low-risk solution," said Crisler.

Deciding the winner

The Navy faces a stark choice.

"A turboprop versus a jet does create a speed versus an endurance difference," said Navy Commander Mike Hewitt, MMA requirements officer, "But both offers can deliver the capability we need."

One of Boeing's ongoing ethics debacles began when employees stole documents from MMA rival Lockheed to win a bigger share of a rocket-launch contract.

And Boeing's deal to convert 767s into military refueling tankers has been dogged by ethical and financial controversy; on Tuesday, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld placed any decision about the deal on hold for six months.

Could those procurement-scandal problems affect the outcome of this competition?

"Except for the high-profile tanker deal and the Delta rocket launches, business is going on as usual," said analyst Nisbet. "Even with the scandals, the company got $50 billion in fresh orders (from the government) last year."

If Boeing loses out, he suggested, it'll be because its nontraditional proposal demands that the Navy change its way of thinking.

Yet that's also the strength of Boeing's bid.

The current P-3s are on average 30-year-old airplanes, about one third of them slated for retirement over the next two years. For Norgart, it's unthinkable to ask the next generation of Navy pilots not to move up to a jet.

"It would be the same as me flying the P-2s that my dad flew," Norgart said.
 

VetteMuscle427

is out to lunch.
None
Well, what do you think? Which would you rather have? Do you feel that an upgraded P-3 would be the best idea?

How do P-3s fare against the British Nimrods?
 

phrogdriver

More humble than you would understand
pilot
Super Moderator
People would be running over their grandmothers to select maritime out of primary if they had 737s. Whether it's the best platform for the money, I have no idea. The prop vs jet argument part seems silly, though. The C-130 will be around past 2025, too.
 

webmaster

The Grass is Greener!
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Either scenario is a win. They both have advantages, the bottom line is that the community gets a new plane. When Boeing did the tour and brought out one of their 737s, it was quite impressive.

I agree with phrogdriver, I am sure if/when you can finally select 737/Maritime (~2008/9), that SNAs will be beating a path to that....
 

NozeMan

Are you threatening me?
pilot
Super Moderator
Boeing doesn't own Lockheed Martin, they [Boeing] bought McDonnel Douglas!
 

Jaxs170

www.YANKEESSUCK.com
Question about selecting the potentially new 737 Maritime. Who exactly is going to train the new studs and on what platform? I can't see the AF taking in over 100 Navy studs per year on the T-1s, they are about maxed as is. I can't see the Navy using the T-44/TC-12 to train them, too big of a leap to the 737 from that plane (same problem the E-6 studs ran into innitially that caused the switch to the T-1). I also can't see the Navy buying 20-50 new jet trainers to spin up a new training squadron (or converting VT-35), the money just doesn't seem like it would be there to do this.

Now I personally would love to see a new VT with a biz jet trainer in Corpus (NOT Pcola), but I just don't see it happening, and the thought of all those studs possibly having to endure AF training under the current AETC system, umumumumum, sends shivers up and down. Anyone out there have anything to add?
 

phrogdriver

More humble than you would understand
pilot
Super Moderator
Is the article right that the P in P-3 stands for "pursuit?" I always thought it was for "patrol."
 

webmaster

The Grass is Greener!
pilot
Site Admin
Contributor
They are already standing up a working team to implement the curriculum at the FRS, that is half of the problem.

One of the proposals presented by the Boeing team when they toured was for training to be conducted either by them, or one of the majors in their existing simulators and ground training structure. That, in and of itself presents some problems, and brought debate. Part of the funding of the whole program was for training, so I am sure that is going to be handled as time progresses.
 

H20man

Drill baby drill!
The question I have is what would you feel more comfortable in when the **** hits the

fan. in the terms i mean is if the plane encountered a threat or obstacle and needed

to manuever quickly, which one would be more capable to handle the quick response.

Also which plane could handle the stress, i dont know the specs on what the boeing could handle, after all, it is just a variant of a civi aircraft, but wouldnt the Orion 21 be built for that manueverability, instead of just restructuring the wings?

which one would be more piggish also?

sorry for any unclarity or stupidness, not at top of game right now... 1am and just got out of jacuzzi.

but then again politics and money is at heart of everything.

i personally feel that the jet is the future, but in a wartime situation i belive an aircraft is needed that can be manuverable and do its job specifically, regardless of cost.
some say taht we dont face super large threats out there, but the world is always changing. i say be prepared regardless of the cost (pfft yeah right, regardless of cost, a snowball's chance in hell in todays politics)

*****DISCLAIMER 1*****

this post comes from a HS graduate awaiting college and is not in the know, just curious and opinionated.

*****DISCLAIMER 2*****

DISCLAIMER 1 posted to satisfy those in the know, and others who seem to think that all High Schoolers are dumbasses (yes the majority are, but there are exceptions plus i am no longer in HS)...
*****************************

All actions taken by a person are their responsibility, plane (play on words) and simple.

if you cannot be responsible for yourself then please kindly remove yourself from the gene pool, its over crowded as it is.


the disclaimers are humor on my part....................... so bored.
 

zab1001

Well-Known Member
pilot
Super Moderator
Contributor
phrogdriver said:
Is the article right that the P in P-3 stands for "pursuit?" I always thought it was for "patrol."

"P" stands for Per Diem.

-Patrol Aviator
 

Falcaner

DCA "Don't give up the ship"
If it were me i would definatly want the 737. But i think the "NEW" P-3 might win because of money.
 

zab1001

Well-Known Member
pilot
Super Moderator
Contributor
Ooooo, Boeing MMA 737, no galley, full service Starbucks in the back...
 

Squid

F U Nugget
pilot
yes patmack, in fact they already have plans in the works to put a kiosk style starbucks in either of the new maritime aircraft.
 
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