Design
| External images | |
|---|---|
| P-8 Poseidon cutway showing weapons bay | |
| Cutaway of P-8 from Flightglobal.com | |
The P-8 is a militarized version of the 737-800 with 737-900-based wings. The airframe uses a 737-800-based fuselage that is similar to but longer than the 737-700-based C-40 Clipper. The P-8 has a strengthened fuselage and 767-400ER-style raked wingtips, instead of the blended winglets available on 737NG variants. The five operator stations (two Naval Flight Officers plus three enlisted Aviation Warfare Operators/Naval Aircrewman) are mounted in a sideways row, along the port side of the cabin. None of these crew stations have windows. One observer window is located on each side of the forward cabin.
The P-8 features the Raytheon APY-10 multi-mission surface search radar. The P-8I will feature an international version of the APY-10. A short bomb bay for torpedoes and other stores opens behind the wing. The aircraft also includes six additional body fuel tanks for extended range from Marshall Aerospace; three of the tanks are located in the forward cargo compartment and three in the rear. In-flight refueling is via a receptacle on top of the forward fuselage, just aft of the cockpit.
In U.S. service, the Poseidon will be complemented by the Broad Area Maritime Surveillance UAV system, which will provide continuous surveillance. The system is expected to enter service around 2010. Around 40 UAVs based on the RQ-4 Global Hawk will be used in the program. Because of the cancellation of Lockheed Martin's Aerial Common Sensor project, Boeing will propose a signals intelligence variant of the P-8 to service the requirement for the U.S. Navy.
Read more about this topic: Boeing P-8 Poseidon
Famous quotes containing the word design:
“Humility is often only the putting on of a submissiveness by which men hope to bring other people to submit to them; it is a more calculated sort of pride, which debases itself with a design of being exalted; and though this vice transform itself into a thousand several shapes, yet the disguise is never more effectual nor more capable of deceiving the world than when concealed under a form of humility.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“Teaching is the perpetual end and office of all things. Teaching, instruction is the main design that shines through the sky and earth.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“With wonderful art he grinds into paint for his picture all his moods and experiences, so that all his forces may be brought to the encounter. Apparently writing without a particular design or responsibility, setting down his soliloquies from time to time, taking advantage of all his humors, when at length the hour comes to declare himself, he puts down in plain English, without quotation marks, what he, Thomas Carlyle, is ready to defend in the face of the world.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)