GUY NORRIS / SEATTLE
Manufacturer reveals more details of contender for US Navy multi-mission competition
Boeing plans to fly its 737-800-based Multi-mission Maritime Aircraft (MMA) as soon as mid-2006, if it is selected later this year by the US Navy to proceed with a $3 billion system development and demonstration (SDD) programme.
Revealing new details of its proposed MMA solution, Boeing says the navy is officially scheduled to award a contract on 9 June, but that a winner could be known by late April. The Boeing-led MMA team, which includes Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and Smiths Aerospace, is competing against Lockheed Martin, which is proposing a radically revamped P-3-based design dubbed Orion 21.
The winner will build five SDD airframes: an airworthiness test aircraft; two full mission-systems aircraft; and static and fatigue test airframes. The SDD phase will run from 2004-12, with initial operating capability (IOC) planned for 2013. Test flights of Boeing's prototype aircraft, a 737-800 with heavier -900 wings, would last initially from June 2006 to February 2007.
A "Milestone C" decision to start low-rate initial production of the MMA is due by 2008. This will cover the production of an initial 13 aircraft to be delivered in the build-up to IOC in the 2011-12 period. Full-rate production is expected to start in 2012 with the assembly of between 12 and 18 aircraft a year, says Boeing. This phase will eventually see the delivery of 137 aircraft, bringing to 150 the number of MMA platforms delivered to the USN.
The new aircraft will supplement and eventually replace the navy's ageing fleet of 246 Lockheed Martin P-3 Orions. However, the navy's recent discovery of worse-than-expected fatigue problems in the P3s has caused concern that even a reduced fleet cannot be sustained until a replacement arrives in 2013 (Flight International, 25 November-1 December 2003).
Boeing confirms that accelerating this programme "is a big subject of discussion, and we are required to submit a streamlined version", says MMA campaign manager Tim Norgart. "We anticipate after contract award further discussions on how we could do this programme quicker."
MMA deputy programme manager Mark McGraw says one option is for the navy to begin taking aircraft at a much faster rate. "We have even talked about up to 24 aircraft a year," he says. The aircraft will be delivered "green" from the Renton, Washington production line to Wichita, Kansas for a conversion process that is expected to stabilise at 12 months.
Source: Flight International
