George1 Sun May 31, 2020 6:33 am
Maritime patrol aviation of U.S. Navy fully re-equipped with Poseidon P-8A aircraft
On May 28, 2020, the U.S. Navy announced that they had completed the rearmament from Lockheed P-3C Orion aircraft to the new Boeing P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft, of the last, 13th, its VP-40 Fighting Marlins based combat patrol squadron at Whidby Island Air Force Base (Washington State). This marked the complete rearmament of the regular parts of the American maririme patrol aviation with R-8A aircraft.
The VP-40 squadron, which has operated Orion aircraft since 1967, surrendered nine of its full-time R-3Cs in 2019, and since November 2019 began re-equipping and retraining on the R-8A, completing it on May 14, 2020. Earlier, by the end of 2019, the re-equipment on the P-8A was completed by the VP-46 squadron.
Now the U.S. Navy aviation has 13 combat patrol squadrons on the new R-8A base patrol aircraft - including six uadrons (VP-1, VP-4, VP-9, VP-40, VP-46 and VP-47) 10th wing (control on Whidby Island) on the West (Pacific) coast of the United States, and seven squadrons (VP-5, VP-8, VP-10, VP-16, VP-26, VP-45 and training VP- 30) to the 11th wing (control in Jacksonville) on the East (Atlantic) coast of the United States.
Now, several R-3C Orion aircraft serving in regular parts of the US Navy remain only in the special secret reconnaissance squadron VPU-2 Special Projects Patrol Squadron. It was previously reported that VPU-2 was also supposed to be re-equipped on the P-8A, starting from the end of 2019, however, according to the latest data, this did not happen. In addition, until 2023, the R-3C Orion aircraft will remain in the reserve patrol squadrons - VP-62 in Jacksonville, and VP-69 on Whidby Island. Also in service for a few more years will remain aircraft radio and electronic intelligence ER-3E ARIES II.
Lockheed P-3 Orion aircraft in the R-3A (P3V-1) version began to enter the U.S. Navy aviation in 1962.
In total, the U.S. Navy plans to receive 120 R-8A aircraft, of which about 110 have been delivered from 2011 to the present.
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