The inaugural deployment of the P-8A Poseidon is now in the books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Patrol Squadron 16 returned to Naval Air Station Jacksonville, Florida, after a seven-month deployment to Kadena Air Base on Okinawa, Japan. The squadron’s last P-8A touched down at NAS Jacksonville on July 16, signaling the beginning of the end for the venerable P-3C Orion, which will phased out over the rest of the decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The P-8 Poseidon either met or exceeded any expectations I had for that aircraft,” said Cmdr. Daniel Papp, VP-16’s commanding officer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here’s what you should know about the airframe’s first time out:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1 Same mission, different tools. <\/b>The squadron deployed with six aircraft and 12 aircrews \u2014 the same as with a P-3 squadron \u2014 and was assigned the same missions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But a P-8 crew is smaller than a P-3 crew, with nine people instead of 11. One of those cuts was the enlisted flight engineer, a job made obsolete by technology upgrades. The two pilots, aided by high-tech avionics, are able to fill that role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The P-8 is the first new maritime patrol aircraft to enter Navy service in more than 50 years. The P-8 offers greater payload capacity, higher operating altitude, and options to easily upgrade its systems, officials say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
2 Better ride. <\/b>VP-16’s crews got to ride in style, after years of service with the notoriously turbulence-prone P-3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The P-8 is built on the base of the venerable Boeing 737 airline frame, with the end result being a more steady ride.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“This was my observation about the P-8 going in: You could fly an eight- to nine-hour mission and I could walk away from that flight feeling more alert and much less tired than I could in, say, a five-hour P-3 flight,” Papp said in a July 17 phone interview. “It’s a smoother ride.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The squadron flew 600 sorties and more than 3,800 hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
3 The search for a missing jetliner. <\/b>The P-8 joined the months-long, high-profile search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In two months on scene, VP-16 kept two aircraft in the effort and rotated aircrews through Perth, Australia, to fly 38 missions, spending more than 300 hours in the air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
4 Less downtime. <\/b>After debate in the airframe’s concept phase, officials decided sailors would shoulder the P-8’s service responsibility \u2014 just as in P-3 squadrons. Contractors remain in the picture as advisers, for now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While on deployment, the maintainers did 14 extensive, pre-planned maintenance evolutions. Each one came in ahead of schedule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
5 What’s next. <\/b>VP-16 will deploy in September 2015 and will move into the workup cycle immediately after post-deployment leave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We will begin to train and reform our aircrews and we will build on the experiences we had … and we expect to come back even more capable next time we deploy,” Papp said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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